branch davidian compound tour

You Can Still Visit What’s Left Of The Branch Davidian Cult Compound In Waco, Texas

D espite their compound burning to the ground 30 years ago, the Branch Davidian cult is as popular as ever. In fact, Netflix recently released a 4-part docuseries entitled Waco: American Apocalypse. The show provides an in-depth look at the cult, its leader, David Koresh, and the 51-day standoff that ensued between the group and law enforcement, who were there due to reports of federal gun law violations within the compound. Four ATF agents were killed by Davidians when rapid gunfire was exchanged, and on April 19, 1993, the entire compound burned to the ground after the FBI launched tear gas canisters into the building, and some 80 members of the cult (including Koresh and at least 22 children) perished in the flames.

While arson investigators concluded that the Davidians started the fire, the few surviving members contest this position. Today, you can visit what little remains of the original Branch Davidian cult compound, and it is a truly haunting experience.

The Branch Davidians existed before David Koresh, but after the events of February-April 1993, his name will forever overshadow any independent beliefs of the original religious group.

A lonely gravel road in waco, texas leads to the site of one of the worst massacres to ever occur on u.s. soil: the compound of the branch davidian cult., while there isn't much left of the compound (after all, it burned to the ground, killing almost all of the cult members), a heavy energy lingers in the air like london fog., if the gates are open (they sometimes aren't), then you're welcome to drive on in. there is a donation box at the entrance; $10 per car is the suggested amount., once inside, you will see several monuments honoring those who died in both the blaze and the 51-day standoff that prefaced it., there is one memorial for the members of the cult (who many consider to be victims, as they were brainwashed by koresh), and another for the four atf agents who died in the gunfight that was the first domino that set off a cascade of tragic events., visitors can also enter a chapel built on the site of the original church, which now serves as a visitor center of sorts., caretakers are not always present on the property, but if you happen to run into one, their deep knowledge of the compound and the events that took place on it will elevate your experience tenfold. you may even get to see some historic photos and documents that few people have ever laid eyes on., the swimming pool used by the branch davidians (which was set to become a bunker, but that plan was never realized) is the only major structure that remains intact. you'll also see remnants of a school bus, the farmhouse across the street that was used to surveil the compound, and trees planted in honor of each of the victims..

Have you ever visited the Branch Davidian cult compound? If so, we’d love to hear all about your experience in the comments. Don’t forget to check out our previous article to learn about the Waco Mammoth National Monument , a much more family-friendly attraction in town where you can see the fossilized remains of 24 Columbian mammoths.

The post You Can Still Visit What’s Left Of The Branch Davidian Cult Compound In Waco, Texas appeared first on Only In Your State ® .

Douglas Beaumont

Christian theology, philosophy, apologetics, visit to branch davidian compound outside waco, tx.

Introduction – Who are the Branch Davidians?

The  Branch Davidians  are a 1930’s offshoot of the   Davidian Seventh Day Adventists   who are an offshoot of the  Seventh-day Adventists  who are themselves offshoots of the failed experiment in end-times predictions made in the 19th century by the Baptist minister  William Miller .

An obscure sect for its first 60 years, the Branch Davidians were made famous when, in 1993, one group led by Vernon Howell (aka  David Koresh ) had their Texas compound in McLennan Texas (called “ Mount Carmel “) raided by the ATF on charges of possessing illegal firearms as well as sexual abuse and misconduct. After a firefight left four agents and six Branch Davidians dead, they were subsequently besieged by the FBI .

The nearly two month long siege ended with a massive fire that destroyed the compound buildings. The compound burned to the ground, leaving behind only foundational concrete and debris.

The outcome of the entire affair was that 76 Branch Davidians were killed –  including Koresh, many women, and 17  children. The Mount Carmel raid (and the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident ) were cited by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols as motivations for the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995 (the second anniversary of the siege).

In October 2012, I was in visiting Baylor University with some friends and I convinced them to go try to find the remains of Mount Carmel. Searching the net, I had found several personal webpages – some explaining how to get there, and some including a few pictures ( 1 ,  2 ), but few were recent. This quick rundown of our trip might be of interest as it is up-to-date as of Fall 2012.

Getting There

Here are the directions to the Branch Davidian compound in case you’re curious.

• From the town of Waco get on  Texas Loop 340.
• Turn onto   Elk Rd. / FM 2491 (at the split, bear left to stay on 2491).
• Turn left on Double E Ranch Road .
• On the right you will come to a private road with a white wall and decorative gate in front (which will hopefully be open). This is the entrance to  Mount Carmel .

We drove slightly past the new Chapel, but stopped when we came to a Private Property sign on the road. We just parked on the left side of the Chapel as it was the only building in the compound area.

The Compound

Driving past the gate, there is a Branch Davidian sign and behind it, under the tree, is a memorial to those who died in the siege.

The center marker shows David Koresh’s name in the list, but it is not set apart in any way.

Along the road are smaller memorials each with their own small tree/bush planted behind it.

Compound Area

This image shows the compound prior to the siege and subsequent fire. The rebuilt chapel was the only building on the compound property proper. Behind and to the left side of the chapel we could see the original foundation (the back part, now covered with building supplies, was apparently Koresh’s hideout). We parked to the left of the Chapel and, seeing no one around anywhere, got out to explore.

The Chapel (New Building)

We did not get inside during our visit, but we saw through the windows that the interior looked like any small community church (here are someone else’s pictures from  inside the chapel . Note especially the End Times chart – the Branch Davidians have not changed their theology much since the siege, as we were to discover later).

There were fliers available at the front door that told the story of the 1993 siege, and in front of it was this sign:  

In the flower garden next to the Chapel steps was this odd marker (I do not know what “Stone Church – Sabbath” refers to):

Not wanting to take a dip in the cool afternoon sun, everyone else went back to the car while I turned to my left to see what lay beyond a barely noticeable line of cement across the lawn.

Underground Area

The largest remaining architectural feature of the compound is an underground area visible as partially uncovered in overhead photos. Walking toward this area, I could see a circular depression ion the ground where the tower once stood (and where one Branch Davidian died by gunshot). The tower is also visible in overhead shots.

The large underground area is divided into two main sections, both flooded with swampy water and plant life. A tunnel at the far end under the road may indicate that this is used for runoff from the adjacent meadow, but this part of the road was beyond the Private Property sign, so we did not investigate.

The intersecting cement block above turned out to be the roof of an underground tunnel that apparently used to connect this underground area to a buried school bus. I did not discover this because I headed back to the car without looking around much. Two second-bravest of my group of friends went over to see the Underground Area after I got back, and they found The Bus.

Bus and Tunnel

There is very little left of the bus which was buried and used as a storm shelter, but you can find it easily by following the tunnel roof into the overgrown area under a tree. In the picture below was taken looking toward the bus / tunnel roof from the chapel, (the “weed line” in the background indicates the edge of the underground area – the road is to the left).

Here is all we found of the bus:

To the right of the bus is the tunnel entrance, now nearly filled in with dirt. As usual, I did not have a flashlight, but after confirming that it was safe by taking a few flash shots with my digital camera, I went in anyway.

The entrance lets in very little light, so it looks like a deep cave, but it actually turns 90 degrees to the left just a few feet inside and then heads straight into the (now submerged) underground area.

Post Script: Dirt Sample and Branch Davidian Conversation

One of my friends collects sand/soil samples from all his interesting trips and as we left the compound he realized he should have got some dirt. So we turned around and headed back.

He got his dirt, but as he headed back we turned to see someone walking toward us from the Chapel. It turned out to be a real-live Branch Davidian! He told us he thought God was telling him to talk to us since we had come back a second time (scary – we never saw him on our first trip!).

The Man of Sin

He then proceeded to tell us about how David Koresh was the “Man of Sin” (cf.  2 Thessalonians 2:3) who had to come in order for Jesus Christ to return (that, you see, is why he could mandate celibacy for all the men and then take their wives – he was the one sinning – oh and plus he needed to have 24 kids to fulfill some prophecy). So, thanks to David K’s sinful lifestyle and death, Jesus can come back.

The New World Order

Among other barely coherent “facts” he shared, we were told that the Pope is a 33rd degree Mason (as is George Bush) who controls all the banks through the Vatican, nuns marry Archbishops, and Waco is the new Jerusalem as indicated by the lack of gays and lesbians around and the fact that  it is on the same latitude as Jerusalem (yes, we checked),

The Sabbath

Our new friend informed us that the Sabbath is not when “we thought it was” (not sure when he thought we thought it was) because the Gregorian calendar and it got messed up. The Adventist connection to this group helped explain the obsession with the Sabbath and the End Times (what David Koresh brought to the table was his self-identification as a sinful messiah , plus a bunch of guns and underage polygamy). He would not tell us when the “real” Sabbath was because (and I quote) “he had to give us some reason to come back.” (Odd – how would we know when to come to his church if we did not know when it met?) As it turned out, we found out anyway because it was listed on their flier (it’s Sunday – I guess they are Baptist after all!).

The Mighty-Breasted Mother God

The real kicker was when he explained that God is not a Trinity but a . . . well, he did not have a word for it – but God is four, not three. There is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of course – but there is also a female Mother God because Hebrew words ending in “ah” are feminine ( shekinah , Jehovah , etc.) and some name of God means “mighty breasted one” (from the Hebrew s haddai , I think). This prompted him to warn the husband of the married couple about treating his wife right, because if he didn’t he was violating the feminine image of God (create in OUR image – remember?). His proof text for this was 1 John 5:7 – “For there are three that bear record – the  Spirit , and the  water , and the  blood .” You see, blood and water came out of Jesus’ flesh at the cross and the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit are one so they are all somehow one but this other spirit isn’t so . . . I honestly got so confused by then I just sort of stared over his shoulder for awhile.

After about 15 minutes he cut us loose and we made haste to the nearest BBQ joint to discuss whether or not we should convert. After much debate, we decided to just stay the course with good old orthodox Christianity.

But if the END comes any time soon, we know where to go.

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RoadsideAmerica.com Your Online Guide to Offbeat Tourist Attractions

Attraction:

Branch Davidian Massacre Site

Waco, Texas

Exactly who did the massacring here is still a matter of some debate. The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is the death toll: four ATF agents and 80 followers of Vernon Howell, a.k.a. David Koresh, and his splinter group of Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists. It happened in early 1993 when the ATF raided, then besieged, then attacked the fortified compound that the Koreshians called Mount Carmel. All that was left was a smoking ruin.

There are no signs of the compound any more; the only remnant is a hole, formerly a swimming pool that was used as a bunker during the siege. A little chapel has been built out by the road by the Koreshians and their supporters, incorporating a museum of Davidian history that censures everyone for the bloodshed.

Up a dirt road is a grove of trees planted in rows, one for each Branch Davidian killed. For several years each had a little granite marker at its base with a victim's name and age and the same date of death: April 20, 1993 (The stones were later mortared into a single memorial). When we visited, a rusting motorcycle stood off to one side, choked with weeds -- David Koresh's? We couldn't say, because our only company was a friendly dog and a lot of grasshoppers.

The surviving Koreshians have erected monuments to everyone who died, to eliminate any lingering animosity. Across the dirt road from the trees is a memorial to the ATF officers who were killed in the February 28, 1993 raid, which kicked off the 51 day siege and the eventual storming of the compound. And there's another monument to the people who died in the Oklahoma City bombing, two years to the day after the massacre at Mount Carmel.

According to John Anderson, who we encountered at his House Of Horrors attraction north of town, "Some folks believe Oklahoma City happened because of Waco." He also told us that the current Branch Davidian leader, Charles Pace, runs the local health food store, and that the Branch Davidians are "very peaceful people." This may be true, but we were getting this information from a guy who runs an attraction with a giant, laughing skull on the side of its building.

Pace has organized about a dozen surviving Davidians into a new church: The Branch, The Lord Our Righteousness. For years he has been trying to turn the massacre site into a visitor destination, with an amphitheater, a biblical petting zoo, a museum and gift shop, a wellness center, a deli, an organic farm, and a model of the tabernacle that housed the Ten Commandments. The intent has always been to de-emphasize the massacre. All parties seem to want very much to forget about the whole thing.

Mount Carmel Massacre Site

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Waco Is Now a Pilgrimage Site for the Patriot Movement

A ntigovernment militias have made “Waco” a code word for federal overreach. Even before the fiery end of the 1993 siege at the Branch Davidians’ compound south of Dallas, where David Koresh and more than 70 of his followers died, Army veteran Timothy McVeigh visited the site. A Koresh supporter, McVeigh sold bumper stickers reading FEAR THE GOVT THAT FEARS YOUR GUNS and A MAN WITH A GUN IS A CITIZEN, A MAN WITHOUT A GUN IS A SUBJECT. Two years later, McVeigh chose the anniversary of the Waco fire to bomb the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Conspiracist Alex Jones led a fund drive to build a chapel on the site of the compound. “No more Wacos!” he shouted. Mike Vanderboegh, cofounder of the Three Percenters militia, warned, “Waco can happen at any given time. But the outcome will be different next time.” One of the insurgents arrested after the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riots anticipated a battle with police he called “Waco 2.0.”

Thirty years after the siege that helped inspire today’s militias, the site has become a tourist attraction. On a good day, more than a hundred visitors pass through the gates of a property near Waco that Google Maps still labels Branch Davidian Compound. There are families, curiosity seekers, and militia members making pilgrimages to one of the hubs of what many call the patriot movement.

Today’s Mount Carmel is a chapel on a grassy floodplain near the corner of Elk Road and Double-EE Ranch Road. The gravel driveway leads past a row of red and green crepe myrtles. Survivors planted eighty-two of the trees in 1994, one for each Davidian who died during the siege. Today there are eighty-one: the current pastor, Charles Pace, chopped down the tree dedicated to David Koresh.

One Sunday not long ago, a breeze rustled the crepe myrtles’ leaves. Dog-day cicadas chirred. Black Angus cattle grazed on the neighbors’ ranch across the fence. The church, sporting a fresh coat of paint, looked as clean and white as on the day it first opened its doors in 2000. After almost a quarter century, it was still one of the top tourist attractions in McLennan County. The only sign of decay was the Davidians’ cement-lined swimming pool, now half-full of rainwater. Nearby, a placard identified a hole in the ground as the entrance to THE VAULT AREA WHERE MOTHERS & CHILDREN WERE GASSED TO DEATH. This was not a true fact—the vault had been at ground level, not underground, and about ten yards away, and the mothers and children inside had burned to death, died of smoke inhalation, or been buried as the compound collapsed around them. But the empty space in the earth suited the mood of the place.

More from TIME

Inside the chapel, ceiling fans stirred the heat. A whiteboard cited a verse from Psalm 77: “I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night . . . Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?” The board held a map of the Old City of Jerusalem. Today’sDavidians—thereare a couple dozen in Waco, several thousand scatteredaround Texas and the rest of the world—stillbelieve they are God’s chosen few. Many consider Koresh a false prophet, perhaps the antichrist. Others expect him to rise again in time for the Last Days.

Pastor Pace and his wife, Alexa, greeted visitors. He had a shaved head and a neatly trimmed beard. Her T-shirt read PRAY TO END ABORTION. Pastor Pace had split off from the sect in the 1980s. “I saw through their delusions,” he said in a hoarse voice. He returned to lead Waco’s diminished flock in 2006. Now seventy-two, he gets around in a wheelchair and has a stainless-steel right leg, the result of a tractor accident that mangled his right foot.

The church’s walls held photos of Davidian leaders: Victor Houteff, Ben and Lois Roden, Koresh. Despite his doubts about his predecessor, Pace knows it’s Koresh most visitors want to hear about. Posters show Koresh’s 1988 mug shot and aerial views of the compound before and after the fire. A memory book holds snapshots of the Davidians who died here in the ATF raid on February 28, 1993 and the fire fifty-one days later. Those too young to be photographed are remembered with cards showing their names and nationalities. Two of the cards read, “Trauma born baby, American.”

The Paces rely on donations. They also sell merchandise: GOD ROCKED FROM WACO T-shirts and postcards showing Koresh playing guitar, Trump flags and shirts emblazoned MR TRUMP YOU ARE MY PRESIDENT 2020–2024. Another shirt reads, PATRIOTS, REMEMBER THE ALAMO? AND FORGET NOT WACO! Posters showed Bill and Hillary Clinton with their fingers to their lips— Shh! —and Koresh wielding a rifle over a line directed at President Joe Biden: SLEEPY JOE, WAKE UP OR WACO! COME GET IT!

Pastor Pace works day and night to maintain the church and the grounds, host Sabbath services, and run a website that blames deep-state conspirators for the siege and fire of ’93, a subsequent cover-up that led to the murder of Vince Foster, and more.

“Koresh may have been a false prophet, but he was onto something,” Pace said that day. Partially blind, he had a gray left eye that wandered while his blue right eye fixed a listener in an iron gaze. “That’s why the Clintons couldn’t let him live. He knew too much about the human trafficking, pedophilia, and gun-and cocaine-running the Clintons and Bushes were guilty of.” The Davidians had built their swimming pool, he believed, “to reclaim a desecrated spot” after Koresh found evidence of a sex-slavery ring based in the cellar, though Koresh never mentioned such a thing.

“This is all proven,” said Pace. A website he built for the church, wacothebranchdavidianpropheciesfulfilled.info, featured a Star of David logo, posts including “Why the Deep State Massacred David Koresh and his Followers,” references to Republicans and “Demonic-rats,” and the QAnon hashtag WWG1 WGA (“Where we go one, we go all”). President George H. W. Bush, he said, “was a pedophile and homosexual. As head of the CIA, Bush built tunnels under the White House. They found fifteen hundred dead children in those tunnels, dead from torture and sexual abuse. When they found out, Donald and Melania Trump cried for hours. And Donald Trump did the right thing: he had Bush arrested for his crimes. George Bush did not die of natural causes in 2018. They executed him for treason. This will all come out in the near future.”

Like Koresh, Pastor Pace knew his Bible well enough to recite much of it from memory. “Prophecy is real,” he said. “I trust in prophecy. That’s what has kept me sane, so to speak.” He was tender with his adult sons, who helped with chores and still found an occasional spent bullet in the acres of grass around the church. Pace said they knew their father might sound unhinged to some, but he was not a hypocrite. He was a believer. He had chopped down the bush dedicated to Koresh “because God told me to.” He thanked God for the militia members who come to Mount Carmel from all over the country. “The Holy Spirit leads them here. The Proud Boys were here, about thirty of them. They say Waco is the Alamo of the modern patriot movement. I told them, ‘If David Koresh were here today, he’d be one of you.’”

Adapted from Cook’s new book, Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America’s Militias

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The Bizarre History of the Branch Davidian Headquarters in Waco, Texas

30 years ago, the religious sect's compound burned in a fatal fire—but records show it had been plagued by controversy long before the siege that caused the blaze.

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For 51 days in the spring of 1993, all eyes were on New Mount Carmel Center, an isolated ranch eight miles east of Waco, Texas, that served as the home and headquarters of a religious sect known as the Branch Davidians. The community had defied categorization for decades—many considered it a cult, while others firmly believed it to be as legitimate a religion as any other legally recognized church. Classification aside, by the early 1990s the group, led at the time by 33-year-old self-proclaimed prophet David Koresh, was suspected of illegally converting semi-automatic guns to be fully-automatic. On the morning of February 28, 1993, seventy-six agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF) descended on the compound, planning to enter the building, locate the stockpile of weapons, and arrest Koresh. But the operation went horribly wrong. News of the impending raid had reached the camp that morning, and Koresh and his followers were armed and ready to defend themselves when the ATF arrived. Four federal agents and six Branch Davidians were killed in the chaotic and violent two-hour shootout that ensued.

That night, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team arrived and set up a perimeter, surrounding the 43,000-square-foot building with a fleet of military vehicles and tanks. Negotiators began calling into the compound’s phone line in a tireless effort to convince the adults inside to surrender—or at the very least, send their children out—but progress was painfully slow. The Branch Davidians were Bible-literalists who believed not only that the apocalyptic events depicted in the Book of Revelation were imminent, but that Koresh, who claimed to be a modern-day Messiah, would be the one to initiate said events by breaking open the Seven Seals. Having stockpiled ammunition and MREs in preparation for a fight to the death against Babylon (translation: the government), the faithful had the means to hold out inside Mount Carmel for quite some time.

Establishing trust between both sides proved to be a next-to-impossible task. On March 2, Koresh told negotiators that he and his followers would come out if his hour-long, taped sermon was aired on a national radio program. The FBI made good on their end of the bargain, but Koresh reneged, saying that God had since told him to wait to surrender. Officials quickly learned that the Branch Davidians, who adhered only to the commands of God—as written in the Bible or spoken through Koresh—had no regard for secular laws or the agents who enforced them. A growing disconnect between the FBI’s tactical and negotiation teams only exacerbated the situation.

As the weeks wore on, agents stationed outside the building began using a massive PA system to broadcast a symphony of dissonant sound effects—including babies crying and a dentist's drill whirring—night after night, depriving the Branch Davidians of sleep. This strategy, and other efforts put forth by the tactical team in an attempt to force the group out of their compound, did little to bring about their surrender. On the contrary, the use of such intimidation tactics by agents undermined the messaging put forth by negotiators, causing them to lose what little ground they had managed to gain with the sect. By mid-April, patience was wearing thin and pressure was mounting on FBI lead agents to bring the conflict to a close. All the while, news teams from across the country remained camped out at a designated roadblock roughly two miles from the 77-acre property, watching and waiting to see how the standoff would end.

On April 19th, they got their answer. Around 6:30 a.m., FBI tanks began driving their gun barrels directly through the walls of Mount Carmel, pumping hundreds of rounds of tear gas inside. By noon, a disastrous fire broke out and quickly spread throughout the building. Only nine people managed to escape before the entire compound burned to the ground with 76 Branch Davidians—including 23 children and the sect's leader, David Koresh—still inside.

To Koresh's followers, their battle with "Babylon" culminated in flames just as their leader had prophesied. But this was hardly the end; it would be years before the resulting trials and investigations revolving around the siege were finished. As for New Mount Carmel Center, the fire marked the beginning of a new chapter in its complicated history which, records show, had been plagued by controversy, public scrutiny, and criminal activity since long before the tragic events of 1993.

Both the Branch Davidians and New Mount Carmel Center date back to the 1930s. To understand how a tract of pasture land came to be so entangled in contention and violent crime, we must start there. Keep reading for a chronological review of the property’s many prophet-owners and the problems unleashed by each.

The First Davidians and The Building of Mount Carmel Center

After failing to convince leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist church that the congregation was in desperate need of religious reform and a return to its original doctrine, Sabbath School teacher Victor Houteff decided to relocate with a flock of followers—other Seventh-day Adventists who supported his messaging and manuscript, The Shepherd’s Rod —from Los Angeles, California to Waco, Texas. The group purchased a nearly 200-acre property near Lake Waco, a few miles northwest of Waco city limits, for roughly $10,000 . They named it Mount Carmel Center, after the mountain range frequently referenced throughout the Bible, and immediately got to work building out their new settlement.

Houteff’s followers made quick progress in establishing their community. By the time their leader married Florence Hermanson—the 17-year-old daughter of two devoted followers—two years after the move to Waco, construction of Mount Carmel’s large administration building was almost complete. The newlyweds, who were 35 years apart in age, would eventually move into an apartment on the building’s second floor. As construction continued, Houteff purchased more land along Lake Waco, until Mount Carmel spanned a total of 375 acres. The growing settlement —which at its peak was home to about 120 residents—would eventually include a school and dormitories, an old-age home, a bakery, a dispensary, a dairy barn, and even a small farmers' market for selling excess produce grown within their self-sufficient farm community.

Houteff saw to it that the ongoing construction of Mount Carmel paused for nothing. To ensure that half of his workforce would not be called away to fight for their country in World War II, he filed articles of organization to legally certify their group as a church. As such, members of the newly formed Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Association (the name was chosen to pay homage to King David) were able to claim religious exemption from the draft. In addition to the continuous expansion of their world headquarters, the Davidians also worked to recruit new members, traveling across the country and spreading Houteff’s message to other Seventh-day Adventists. By the 1980s, their following would number more than 200,000 members around the world .

Relocating, and Waiting on the End Times

After nearly 20 prosperous years developing Mount Carmel Center, Houteff shifted gears to start downsizing when the expansion of Waco city limits began encroaching on Davidian property. Beginning in 1954, sections of Mount Carmel were subdivided and sold off. Florence Houteff took over liquidation efforts—and leadership of the church—following her husband’s death in February 1955, and continued listing various parcels until all 375 acres along Lake Waco were sold. Collectively, the property was estimated to have sold for about $600,000.

Having sold all of the original Mount Carmel Center property, the Davidians relocated to an area roughly eight miles east of Waco city limits, where land was cheaper. They purchased a 941-acre farm and named it New Mount Carmel Center. Buildings at the new settlement were constructed as cheaply as possible—the Davidians were budgeting for a massive marketing campaign around the final prophecy of the late Victor Houteff. According to Florence, during their final conversation, her husband revealed that the End Time they’d been waiting for would arrive on April 22, 1959.

In its first highly-publicized controversy, New Mount Carmel Center made national headlines when 1,000 Davidians from all over the world gathered to await a sign from God said to be coming on April 22, 1959. Expecting to be led to a promised land following April 22nd, many who arrived had sold their homes and businesses before moving to Waco, where they were now living in tents, trailer homes, and motel rooms. By late July, when still no such sign had appeared, 13 permanent buildings were constructed so that those Davidians who had remained, waiting and praying at Mount Carmel, no longer had to sleep in tents.

By the following spring, most of the Davidians who had gathered at New Mount Carmel Center had given up hope. Neighbors estimated the number of people living on the property had dwindled from 1,000 Davidians down to approximately 50. Those still living at Mount Carmel operated a dairy farm. They had livestock, machinery, and a large dairy barn, as well as a small church, and a large administration building, which had office spaces and various office equipment. The property also had 18 small frame homes where families lived.

Legal Battles and Family Feuds

Two years later, in March 1962, leaders of the Davidian church accepted that no sign was coming. The executive council voted to dissolve the organization and subsequently sell off its remaining assets , which included the 18 frame houses, the administration building, and 77.86 acres of land. This decision was controversial, as some remaining Davidians were not in support of selling the property; several filed civil suits that would keep the property rights tied up in litigation for several years to come.

In the meantime, a small handful of Davidians remained living on the property, where several splinter groups soon emerged. One such faction was led by Benjamin Roden , a Davidian from Odessa, Texas, who attempted to purchase the remaining Mount Carmel property in April of 1965, but was blocked by the civil suits still pending in court. Roden, who claimed to have been "forcibly ejected" from the 1959 meetings at Mount Carmel, was leading a new group known as "The Branch."

The legal battle over ownership of New Mount Carmel Center’s remaining 77 acres grew increasingly tense. In March of 1966, when the court issued a final ruling that generally favored the Davidian council’s vote to dissolve the church and liquidate the organization’s remaining assets, the splinter groups immediately filed appeals, further dragging out legal matters. The fighting continued outside of court, too. On September 8, 1966, Ben Roden, his wife Lois, his son George, and three other Branch Davidians were arrested and charged with burglary after they broke into a house at the Mount Carmel Center where a caretaker who had been hired by the court-appointed trustee responsible for the future sale of the property had been living, and were caught in the act of removing furniture. A few weeks later, Lois Roden was arrested again and charged with aggravated assault after she reportedly struck a member of another Davidian faction involved in the ongoing court proceedings.

The fight over Mount Carmel reached a breaking point when seventeen people, including the Rodens, were ordered to move off the premises —where they had been living in violation of a 1966 court order—by October 3, 1968, or else face jail time for contempt of court. In return, the seventeen Davidians filed a petition against the eviction. Then, on October 9, 1968, Tom Street, the court-appointed trustee of the Davidian church, received permission from the court to sell the Mount Carmel property to The Branch. At the time, the price for the 77 acres of land, the frame houses, a church, and the administration building was set at $70,000. However, documents later filed with the McLennan County Clerk’s office state that New Mount Carmel Center was sold on February 26, 1973, in a private sale executed by Tom Street to Benjamin Roden, Lois Roden, and George B. Roden, Trustees for the General Association of Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists, for $30,000.

1977 Lois Roden told Branch Davidians she'd received a message from God that the Holy Spirit was both masculine and feminine, establishing herself as a prophet with a direct line to the divine. As her power grew, there was a period of (relative) peace and quiet for the next few years at New Mount Mount Carmel Center, though it wouldn’t last. Following Ben Roden's death on October 22, 1978, Lois Roden effectively took over as President of the General Association of Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists. Her appointment was immediately contested by her son, George Roden, who in 1979 called for an official vote on the matter. Lois won the majority vote and was eventually forced to file a restraining order against her son—who continued to argue that the position was rightfully his—banning him from Mount Carmel and forbidding him to return.

Though George Roden made a habit of violating the restraining order that barred him from Mount Carmel property, Lois Roden was able to settle comfortably into her new leadership role there. She led daily prayer and bible study sessions each morning, and she also implemented the consumption of grape juice and unleavened crackers, symbolizing the blood and body of Christ, into the residents’ daily routine. She began referring to her followers as the "Living Waters," a name that ties back to several Biblical passages—though the name on the deed to Mount Carmel remained the General Association of Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists. In addition to her daily leadership duties, Lois also spent a lot of time traveling to speak at various religious gatherings. While rewarding, the work was tiring, and she would soon begin to worry about who might eventually replace her as leader.

The Rise of David Koresh and Further Chaos

Lois Roden found her protégé when a new face arrived at Mount Carmel in the summer of 1981. After a few years of personal turmoil, Vernon Wayne Howell (who would legally change his name to David Koresh in 1990) turned to God for answers. He joined a Seventh-day Adventist parish in Tyler, Texas, where he quickly frustrated church leaders with relentless questions regarding the existence of modern prophets. Upon hearing of a group in Waco that was supposedly being led by a true prophet, the 21-year-old made his first trip out to New Mount Carmel Center. Shortly thereafter he began attending private Bible study sessions in Lois Roden’s living quarters. After a few years under her mentorship, Howell was clearly poised to eventually succeed Lois as leader of the Branch Davidians.

Lois Roden’s relationship with Vernon Howell caused tensions to rise. After George Roden heard that Howell had begun having sex with his 67-year-old mother, he returned to Mount Carmel and accused her mentee of rape. When George continued to make threats, Howell and a group of his supporters moved away from Mount Carmel. They soon purchased 20 wooded-acres in Palestine, Texas and set up camp .

Following Lois Roden’s death on November 10, 1986, George Rodeo officially assumed control of the New Mount Carmel Center, where about seven families remained in the community.

The next year, New Mount Carmel Center made headlines again, on more than one occasion. At the time, the General Association of the Branch Davidians owed more than $62,000 in back taxes on the property, which hadn’t been paid since 1968. When county officials threatened to seize the 77-acre tract and sell it at auction, George Roden took the tax battle to court. In a brief filed in the 10th Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court, he threatened the justices reviewing his case , saying: "Maybe God will make it up to you in the end and send you herpes and AIDS, the seven last plagues."

Reports from Mount Carmel grew more bizarre as the year went on. From his new location in Palestine, Texas, Vernon Howell filed a deed with the McLennan County Clerk’s office removing George Roden as trustee of The Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists and naming himself as President. In response, Roden allegedly exhumed the body of former Davidian Anna Hughes from a makeshift cemetery on the property and challenged Howell to a contest —whoever could raise her soul from the dead should be the group’s true leader. Rather than engaging in a duel with Roden, Howell reported him to the police for corpse abuse, but officials said they would need proof of the body-snatching, rather than taking Howell's word for it.

On November 3, 1987, Howell and seven of his followers snuck onto Mount Carmel property in an attempt to photograph Anna Hughes' casket, which they believed was being stored inside the chapel. The mission was unsuccessful, and following a shootout with Roden, the eight men were arrested and charged with attempted murder. A jury later acquitted the seven Koresh followers but was deadlocked on their leader. Eventually, though, his charges were dropped. Meanwhile, George Roden was sentenced to six months in prison for contempt of court relating to the threatening language he used in the brief regarding his property tax battle.

Porn, Polygamy, and The Siege

With George Roden finally out of the way, Vernon Howell, now calling himself David Koresh, took charge of New Mount Carmel Center along with his followers. Upon their return, they found the property in a state of disarray. A large amount of printed pornography was discovered—and then destroyed—in the small frame homes, which George Roden had rented to outsiders as a means of paying the overdue property taxes. Authorities were called to collect remnant lab equipment that had seemingly been used to cook meth.

Following an extensive cleanup, renovations began. Koresh’s followers deconstructed the 18 frame houses, using the cheap materials from those smaller structures to build their massive, 43,000-square-foot facility. When construction on the L-shaped building was completed, it included a kitchen and cafeteria-style dining room, a chapel, and a gymnasium, as well as a pool and a water tower out back. But the it did not include indoor plumbing or running water, except for the kitchen sink, and most rooms were without electricity. As a result, women and children used chamber pots kept in their bedrooms, and men used an outhouse behind the building, where a makeshift shower had also been rigged. They had kerosene lamps for light, a handful of space heaters for warmth in the winter, and a few fans during the hot, Texas summers. The only air conditioning inside of Mount Carmel came from a small window unit in David Koresh’s second-floor bedroom.

In addition to erecting their compound, the Branch Davidians also began work on a large excavation project directly beside the building, which authorities believed was intended to be some type of bunker. The long, rectangular pit was connected to the building by an old yellow school bus that had been buried to serve as a makeshift underground tunnel.

The pro-Koresh Branch Davidians managed to live under the radar for the next few years following their return to the property, but early in 1992, Mount Carmel was in the news again when the Waco Tribune-Herald began covering unfounded claims that the group was planning a mass suicide to take place there on Passover that year. It was also around this time that Child Protective Services began investigating allegations of ongoing child abuse at Mount Carmel, where, per Koresh’s instructions, children as young as six months were disciplined with a public spanking on the rear end using a wooden spoon referred to as "the helper." The adults at Mount Carmel admitted to spanking the children, though they denied the punishments ever reached a level of severity where children were physically hurt or bruised. After nine weeks of interviews with both children and adults living at the compound, DCS closed their investigation, having been unable to secure evidence corroborating the child abuse claims reported by former Koresh supporters who had come to disagree with his teachings.

Koresh had also been accused of having sexual intercourse with underage girls at Mount Carmel —in fact, his former followers say he'd admitted to having intercourse with Michelle Jones, the younger sister of his legal wife, Rachel, when Michelle was just twelve years old. He’d taken several other "wives" since receiving instruction from God to do so in 1986. Then, in 1989, he claimed all of the women at Mount Carmel as his. All existing marriages, aside from his with Rachel, were annulled, and thereafter the men of Mount Carmel were forbidden from having sex altogether. In addition to this institutionalized polygamy, Koresh had ordered a number of Mount Carmel residents, who had been recruited from Seventh-day Adventist churches in the U.K., not to go outside after their visas had expired. By the time he had his followers converting semi-automatic guns to be automatic, he was already violating countless laws.

New Mount Carmel Center reached the height of its media notoriety during the 7-week standoff between Branch Davidians and the FBI in spring of 1993. Following the April 19, 1993 fire, after authorities had finished canvasing the scene, what little that remained of Mount Carmel was bulldozed. The desolate patch of dusty gravel that was left behind became a macabre tourist attraction, drawing a reported 2,500 visitors over the July 4th holiday. The following weekend, county officials closed the road leading up to the compound. By August, health officials concerned about rotting food and human waste had quarantined the site, fencing off the entire area, which was also said to be contaminated with lead from ammunition that had melted during the fire. The soil had also been soaked with 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel , which was spilled when agents ruptured 500-gallon tanks to deprive the Branch Davidians of their generators.

After the Siege

Once the ashes settled at New Mount Carmel Center, several former Branch Davidians returned to the site to stake their claim over the property—and stir up trouble with local authorities. In July of 1994, Amo Bishop Roden, a woman who claimed to be the common-law wife of George Roden—he had been institutionalized since he admitted to murdering his roommate in October of 1989—was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for blocking the entrance to Mount Carmel. Police were called to the site when Mrs. Roden sat near the property’s chain-link gate , refusing to let cars pass in or out of the fenced area. This appears to be the first time Mrs. Roden was reported to authorities since she first arrived at the compound around August of 1993, but it would not be the last. Later in November, police were called to the property four days in a row for disturbances involving Mrs. Roden. Following the fourth incident , in which she fired a single warning shot into the air after being asked to move some of her belongings from a small shed on the property, the 51-year-old was arrested and charged with felony deadly conduct. Mrs. Roden was released on $3,000 bond and returned to the property, where she continued to claim rightful ownership through her estranged husband.

On the second anniversary of the fire, a commemorative memorial was unveiled during a ceremony on April 19, 1995 . Eighty crepe myrtle trees were planted on the property, one for each of the Branch Davidians who died in 1993. Below each tree was a small granite marker with the name of one of the victims. During the ceremony, members of a group calling itself the Northeast Texas Constitutional Militia also dedicated a marble marker to the Davidians who died there. On the same day, miles away in Oklahoma City, 168 people were killed when domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh set off a homemade bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, citing the Waco siege two years prior as part of his motivation. The following month, Amo Bishop Roden told reporters that visitors to Mount Carmel had tripled since the bombing.

In July, another monument was added at Mount Carmel , this time by Charles Pace, an Alabama minister who had lived there while Ben and Lois Roden were still at the helm. Pace had returned sometime after the fire with a small following of his own and dedicated the monument bearing the name "Living Waters Branch of Righteousness" to his group. For the next few years, he lived on the property in contention with Amo Bishop Roden, she in a small wooden shack built near the entrance to Mount Carmel, and he in an air-conditioned camper parked less than 100 yards away.

In January 1997, a mysterious fire drew local authorities back to New Mount Carmel Center. The sheriff's department suspected that the fires, which destroyed Amo Bishop Roden's shack and two small buildings she used as museums, were set intentionally, though they didn't have any suspects in connection with the crime. The former Mrs. Roden had recently remarried and was now living on the property with her new husband, Thomas Drake, and his brother. She remained involved in the legal battle over ownership of Mount Carmel until around May of 2000.

In June of 1997, the General Association of The Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists were reorganized and reformed under a new name: "The Branch, the Lord (YHVH) Our Righteousness." Documents filed with the McLennan County Clerk’s Office list Charles Joseph Pace as President of the reorganized church.

In the new millennium, the Branch Davidians began to rebuild. Controversial radio host Alex Jones led a volunteer effort to construct a new chapel at Mount Carmel over the spot where the previous chapel had been. Supporters and sympathizers from more than 43 states, as well as Canada and Australia, donated over $93,000 in funds and materials for the project. Over the course of 32 weeks, more than 1,200 people volunteered their time to help build the 40-by-65-foot, tan frame building. During a dedication ceremony on April 19, 2000, Jones named Clive Doyle, one of the nine Branch Davidians who escaped the fire, as trustee of the new church.

The following month, an ongoing suit revolving around ownership of Mount Carmel was settled. After two and a half hours of deliberations, a jury decided that neither the surviving followers of David Koresh, led by Clive Doyle, nor Amo Bishop Roden were legitimate trustees of the Branch Davidian church, and thus had no official claim to its property.

After several years of coexistence at New Mount Carmel Center, the competition between pro-Koresh and anti-Koresh Branch Davidians came to an end when Clive Doyle, who had been operating a museum and leading services in the chapel for fellow surviving Koresh followers, moved away from the property . Doyle told reporters that he made the decision to finally leave due to conflicts with Pace.

Having gained total control over New Mount Carmel Center once and for all, Charles Pace, now living in a house behind the new chapel built in 2000, spoke with reporters about his renovation plans for the property. Pace said he hoped to build out a settlement that would include a museum and gift shop, an amphitheater, a biblical petting zoo, and a wellness center, among other facilities. In the meantime, while a lack of funds delayed the project, Pace made alterations to the memorials that had been dedicated in 1995. He removed the granite markers that had been set beneath the 80 crepe myrtle trees and later rebuilt them into a wall alongside other memorials by the property’s entrance. The tree dedicated to David Koresh was destroyed, and Pace said he was considering tearing down the other trees as well.

Pace's ownership over the property was made official a few years later in a declaration filed with the McLennan County Clerk’s office which lists The Branch, the Lord (YHVH) Our Righteousness as owner of New Mount Carmel Center, and Charles Pace as President of the church.

New Mount Carmel Center made headlines once more in an exclusive interview with Charles Pace published by the Daily Mail. Photographs in the report showed that Pace's 2007 renovation plans had fallen short, though he did install a kitchen at the back of the church and a large shed outside it. The report also showed that the old swimming pool, which survived the 1993 fire, was being used for aquaponics.

Thirty years post-siege, the New Mount Carmel Center is still a center of controversy. Charles Pace appears to still reside here, selling t-shirts out of the chapel ( operating hours seem to vary) and promoting conspiracy theories regarding the 1993 siege.

Looking for more stories like this one? Subscribe to House Beautiful’s podcast, Dark House , to learn more about America’s most notorious homes and properties. Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream now, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Planet Koresh: Inside the Mount Carmel Compound in Waco, Texas

Kevin cook on the rise of david koresh and the branch davidian cult.

The Branch Davidians’ flat, windy property measured seventy-seven acres, but they spent almost all their time in a two-acre compound some of them called the Anthill. They built it in two years after reclaiming Mount Carmel from George Roden in 1988. With Koresh overseeing the work, they turned what a neighbor remembered as “truckloads of lumber and sheet rock, hundreds of pounds of nails, miles of electrical wire, and enough sand and gravel to fill an Olympic-size pool” into a short-term home for him and 120 followers. Their plywood walls wouldn’t need to last long because Jesus was coming back soon. Koresh laid out the floor plans and oversaw construction of what he dubbed “Ranch Apocalypse.”

David Thibodeau, the resident smart-ass, had his own name for Mount Carmel. He called it “Planet Koresh.”

The self-appointed prophet led a diverse group of more than a hundred. Many of his followers were Black, including a contingent of “Afro-Brits” who had picked up stakes in England and moved to Waco. There were Australians, Caribbean islanders, several Hawaiians, and others of Asian, Mexican, and Native American descent, plus Pablo Cohen, an Argentina-born Israeli the others called their “Taco Jew.” To any Caucasians who didn’t cotton to foreigners or Blacks, Koresh said, “Don’t be flaunting yourself or what country you are from. Don’t be flaunting your education or the color of your skin. God’s not into that, and we won’t tolerate it here.”

A dented mailbox out front read BRANCH DAVIDIAN CHURCH , but there wasn’t much mail for believers who saw themselves as a breed apart from millions of “mainstreamers” who went to church on Sundays. Koresh considered mainstream Christianity little more than a modern convenience. “You go to a religious social club once a week and act like a yo-yo. Stand up, sit down, stand up. Christianity two thousand years ago wasn’t like that.”

His preaching mixed biblical versification with homespun wisdom. “I reckon we’re up against Babylon,” he said, “and the odds ain’t on our side!” For true believers, his Bible studies were better than any movie. Livingstone Fagan, one of the Afro-Brits, had been studying for his master’s in theology at England’s Newbold College when Koresh gave a talk there. “In three hours I perceived more Biblical truths than I had done in the eight years I’d been involved with organized religion,” said Fagan, who moved to Texas to join Koresh’s flock. According to another Davidian, Rita Riddle, “I learned more with him in one night than in a lifetime of going to church.” Koresh made recruiting trips to Australia and Hawaii, often captivating his listeners with a dramatic new vision of Seventh-day Adventism.

His writings were strewn with errors—“maby” for “maybe,” “manny” or “menny” for many, references to man’s “mortle sole.” But when his followers gathered on the tiers of Mount Carmel’s chapel, each following along in his or her Bible as he preached, they were transfixed. As Branch Davidian Kathy Schroeder put it, “We believed prophecy was being fulfilled. To see the fulfillment of God’s words, spoken thousands of years ago, was very exciting.”

Sheila Martin: “He wove it all together, explaining it all. Was he a showman? Very much so. He told us and showed us that God was real, we could trust Him and we didn’t have to be afraid, whatever was getting ready to happen.”

Clive Doyle: “As David himself said, with his limited education he could never have had the knowledge he had. Not without help. I believe God was speaking through him.”

David Thibodeau: “People talk about his charisma. Charisma my ass—he was a plain old country boy. People think we were a bunch of fanatics following this ‘charismatic’ leader, this radical who hypnotized us. It wasn’t like that. He was just a dude, but he had a sort of genius for getting under your skin. Why did we follow him? Mainly because he had a deeper understanding of scripture than anyone I ever met.”

Doyle: “People ask why we followed David Koresh. I say, What if you lived two thousand years ago? You’re a fisherman. Jesus walks up and says, ‘Follow me.’ That’s who we were.”

Thibodeau: “Were we a cult? I don’t like the c-word, but I can tell you that we were inspired. Can you imagine what that feels like? How good it feels to have a purpose in life?”

Koresh’s teachings revolved around Revelation, the Bible’s hair-raising climax, with its Marvel Comics images of God looking down from an emerald throne while Four Horsemen named Death, Famine, War, and Conquest gallop under stars falling from the sky. In the soon-to-come Last Days, he preached, a man would rise to shepherd a chosen few to the Kingdom of Heaven. That leader need not be a paragon of virtue, as Fagan and other religiously trained Davidians knew from their readings of scripture.

The messiah could be a sinner or even a dyslexic former “retard,” provided he could “open” the Seven Seals of Revelation, which meant interpreting God’s plan for the end of time. Like King Arthur’s pulling a sword from a stone, this was a task only one human could perform. “I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a book… sealed with  seven seals,” wrote John the Divine, the first-century evangelist credited with writing Revelation, “and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?’”

Koresh never claimed to be a saint. He said he wasn’t the original Jesus but a twentieth-century Christ, a “sinful messiah” for a sinful era. “If the Bible is true, then I’m Christ,” he told a reporter who came digging around his Anthill. “But what’s so great about being Christ? A man of sorrow acquainted with grief.” Asked if he was brainwashing the other Davidians, he asked, “Doesn’t Christ brainwash us? He gets rid of the filth and puts in the good.”

He liked testing his followers’ faith. One day he drove some of the women to a laundromat and dropped them off with a warning: “Do the laundry—don’t you go shopping at Walmart.” They got the laundry done with time to spare. “And yes, we visited Walmart,” Sheila Martin remembers. “But we got back in time for afternoon worship. And he had the gate closed. He comes out and asks, ‘Did you listen to me? Or did you have a nice vacation from God?’ In a way it wasn’t fair, but David had his rules.” Life at Mount Carmel was “fun,” she says, “as long as we were obedient.”

Doyle recalls a Bible class in which Koresh told the youngest girls to give him their favorite dolls. All but one girl complied. “I wanna keep my baby!” she said. He collected the other dolls, then poured out a bag full of brand-new ones, the toys every girl wanted that year. “They all got a brand-new doll, all but the girl who held on to hers. David said, ‘You didn’t trust me. You made a choice against me.’”

Waco firearms dealer Henry McMahon admired Koresh’s work ethic. “At first he knew nothing about guns. At the end he knew more than I did,” McMahon said. According to Thibodeau, “He loved taking weapons apart, cleaning and greasing them, reassembling them. It was a sensual pleasure, a feeling for the way things work.” Koresh could strip a gun and reassemble it in seconds. He knew enough about night-vision scopes to prefer cheap but effective $750 infrared models to Starlight scopes that cost up to ten times as much.

The scruffy prophet was the same way with car engines, often working under the hood of his gleaming black turbocharged 1968 Camaro, holding forth on Psalms or Revelation while country music played on the tape deck. His band played nothing but rock, but he liked to sing along with Merle Haggard or Randy Travis while he worked.

Thibodeau smiles at the thought of one of their moneymaking schemes from those days: “We discovered gun shows!”

Guns were part of life in Texas. With a population of 17 million and more than 65 million registered firearms, the Lone Star State had more guns than any other. In the early 1990s, with Congress debating new limits on gun sales, the Branch Davidians began attending gun shows all over the state. As arms dealer McMahon later told ATF agents, Koresh “bought guns as an investment. He believed that if federal gun-control proposals became law, prices for semiautomatic firearms purchased before the ban would double overnight.” Koresh haggled over purchases, often insisting on mint-condition weapons still in boxes from their manufacturers. “He was buying guns to resell, not to use,” McMahon said.

Marketing their wares at gun shows, the Davidians sold secondhand Russian AK-47s, Israeli Uzis, gas masks, and ammo vests labeled “David Koresh Survival Wear.” Hunting jackets made by Mount Carmel seamstresses came complete with dummy grenades sewn into the fabric to make them look extra-deadly. And when the price of AK-47s topped Koresh’s most optimistic prophecy, shooting from $500 to $2,000, he and his flock cleaned up. Gun-show profits paid for a swimming pool at Mount Carmel as well as dirt bikes, go-carts, and a 52-inch wide-screen TV for the chapel.

After that, Koresh hosted movie nights, screening Apocalypse Now , Full Metal Jacket , and other Vietnam War films for his followers, young and old, “to get y’all ready for the battles ahead.” According to a former Davidian, he called war movies “training films.” Another favorite was The Lawnmower Man —“a cult classic,” he called it, about a “retarded” hero with superhuman powers. He also loved MTV, “especially if Madonna was on,” Thibodeau recalled. Koresh believed that after his preaching made him famous, his favorite pop star would join his harem at Mount Carmel. He claimed God had spoken to him in a dream, saying, “I will give thee Madonna.”

“Every time David went somewhere, at least five or six people followed him,” his mother said. “Especially girls.” He might take a few young women for a ride or drive some of the men to the Chelsea Street Pub in West Waco “to kick back and swallow some suds.” A pitcher of Miller High Life later, he might let the men order another, instructing one of them to phone Mount Carmel and tell the women they were free to enjoy a wine cooler or two. He banned smoking entirely except when he lit up, justifying his Marlboro Lights with a description of God in Psalm 18: “ There went up a smoke out of His nostrils.” Koresh alone decided who could break the rules and when.

On Friday nights the women welcomed the Sabbath by “dressing up a little,” one follower said. “They wore their best sweaters, maybe a bow in their hair, even earrings.” In Koresh’s view, every Branch Davidian female belonged to him. When church elder Doyle’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Shari, became one of the prophet’s “wives,” he wondered, “Is this God’s will, or just horny old David?” Still he agreed to the match. As Doyle put it, “God asks his messengers to do some weird stuff.”

Horny old David sometimes brought sex talk into the chapel. Gladys Ottman, a Canadian follower, recalled sitting in a circle during Bible studies when Koresh asked which of them masturbated or had tried oral or anal sex. He could preach against such “deviance” with a gleam in his eye.

He spoke of “reaping the virginity” of young girls to create generations of descendants whose numbers he pictured growing from twelve to twenty-four to forty-eight and then into the thousands. He also reserved the right to sleep with their mothers. Forty-eight-year-old Jeannine Bunds, whose nineteen-year-old daughter, Robyn, would bear him a son, was proud to join Robyn in the harem they called the “House of David.” “He wouldn’t do it unless you wanted it,” she said. “He was a very appealing, sexual person.”

A registered nurse, she slept with Koresh and also delivered several of his children including Michele Jones’s twins, Chica and Little One, who like all the rest were named by their biological father. Robyn Bunds believed that Koresh “carried God’s seed.” She agreed with Alisa Shaw, another of his bedmates, who said, “Not every woman is worthy of Koresh’s loins.”

For all Mount Carmel’s racial diversity, there were taboos Koresh did not violate. One qualification for membership in the House of David appeared to be skin color: he chose no Black women as “wives.” Not even pretty Novelette Sinclair, a Jamaica-born Canadian who admitted being sexually drawn to him, was invited into the House of David.

Still he claimed to be color-blind. He liked to point to the Afro-Brits and say, “The Blacks let me down. I hate Blacks.” Then he’d point to the Hawaiians and Filipinos. “I hate the yellows. I hate the whites, too, all superior-like. I hate me . Don’t you?”

Instead of hate, they regarded him with awe. Koresh considered that appropriate. As their prophet and messiah, he said, quoting the Song of Solomon, he was entitled to “ threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number .” He scolded the men: “You married guys have to stop fucking and put your mind one hundred percent on the message.” Thibodeau told of how he “liked to fling taunts at us. ‘I got all the women, aren’t you jealous?’ We’d chuckle awkwardly, ha ha. Then David would say, ‘We’re all God’s guinea pigs. My lot’s to procreate, yours is to tolerate.’”

“He said God had mates for us in the Kingdom,” says Sheila Martin, who stopped sleeping with her husband once Koresh announced that Davidian men—all except him—must be celibate. “There were perfect mates for us in heaven, so we should not want the mates we were with. The Catholics had nuns and priests who saved themselves for God. That was what we should do.” At one point Koresh blamed his followers for his stomach ulcers. “He said he was being punished because of us. We were failing him and failing God.”

Sheila’s husband, attorney Wayne Martin, already blamed himself for the meningitis that had crippled and blinded their son Jamie. Wayne tended to put on weight and felt guilty about that as well. Redoubling his efforts to live a spotless life, he slept apart from his wife, in a different room on another floor, as Koresh commanded.

“It was not easy on David to have a bunch of wives,” Koresh’s mother, Bonnie, insisted. “It hurt Rachel in the beginning, but then God told her David was to take another wife. Rachel was cheated out of a lot of things. David used to tell me, ‘Mama, she never had a wedding or honeymoon. Someday I’ll give her a real wedding and a real honeymoon.’” In Bonnie’s view, her son was saving Michele, Robyn, and other female followers from a life of promiscuity. “David took some wives,” she said, “but they weren’t out in the world sleeping around like they would have been.”

Rachel, Koresh’s lone legal wife, gave his other lovers advice on how to “bathe and perfume themselves” before joining him in bed.

Each new member of the so-called House of David received a gold-plated Star of David to wear on a chain around her neck. Some girls were groomed for future membership from the age of three or four. As one Davidian remembered, “When I asked my mother why she let that happen to me, she replied, ‘When my sisters and I were at Mount Carmel, we had to submit to the church elders. If we resisted, they held our hands over the fire until we submitted. That’s just what it means to be born a girl.’”

Steve Schneider, who served as Koresh’s chief deputy, suffered a crisis of faith when his wife, Judy, joined the House of David. An affable, ginger-haired forty-one-year-old with a PhD in comparative religion from the University of Hawaii, Schneider always said he believed in David above all. Then his wife of ten years got pregnant by Koresh and changed her name to Judy Schneider-Koresh. “We were lovers for close on twenty years and never made a baby,” the anguished Schneider said. “Now, suddenly, she’s having his child.”

“David saw the position he was putting Steve in,” said Thibodeau. “It’s almost like he liked it. Steve told me, ‘For a moment I really wanted to kill him.’ But when it got down to it, what did he do? Steve stayed loyal.”

Another insider chose a different path. Marc Breault, pronounced bro , a tall, bushy-haired Australian who was legally blind, squinted at his Bible while claiming he could parse its meanings better than Koresh. “Marc thought David was wrong,” Sheila Martin says of Breault, who had a master’s degree in religion from Loma Linda University. “We thought David might kick him out.”

Instead, Koresh urged them to hear Breault out. “If Marc’s a prophet,” he said, “God will show him the way.”

Breault was beginning to look for a way out. It turned his stomach to sit at his computer, typing up one of Koresh’s sermons in forty-point type the nearly blind man could read, while an underage girl walked by on her way to the stairs that led to Koresh’s room. He thought, “ That little thirteen-year-old is going up there to make love to David. ”

The longer Breault stayed at Mount Carmel, the worse he felt about his life there. Breault’s wife, Elizabeth Baranyai, had annoyed Koresh by resisting his advances. She and Marc weren’t about to break their marriage vows for any man. “I’m seriously starting to doubt whether God has ever talked to this guy,” Breault told some of the others. After Koresh nullified all marriages between other Branch Davidians, Marc and Elizabeth left Mount Carmel for their native Australia. From there they launched a campaign to expose Koresh as a cult leader.

Their defection lit the fuse for all that came later. As Thibodeau put it, “In Marc Breault, David had his Judas.”

__________________________________

Excerpted from Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America’s Modern Militias by Kevin Cook. Copyright © 2023. Available from Henry Holt and Co., an imprint of Macmillan, Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Story Of The Branch Davidians And Their Fiery Demise Outside Waco In 1993

Twenty-five years ago, David Koresh brought an end to more than seven weeks of standoff between his Christian extremist sect and federal agents surrounding the compound. He ordered his followers to pour fuel around buildings and set it ablaze.

Within an hour, all that remained of the Branch Davidians compound, its leader and most of its followers were a few inches of ash.

Koresh may have ordered the act that brought the Branch Davidians to a fiery end, but federal agents and local journalists have also been blamed over the years for their role in the 51-day stalemate and its outcome.

A new Smithsonian Channel documentary that airs 7 p.m. Monday revisits how it happened and includes interviews with survivors who once trusted Koresh with their lives — and their souls.

On Think , host Krys Boyd talked with Charles Poe, the executive producer of “ Waco: The Longest Siege .”

Interview Highlights

About David Koresh and the Branch Davidians

The Branch Davidians were a spinoff in the 1930s of the Seventh-day Adventists and that’s a faith that is particularly open to end-time prophets. David Koresh was originally known as Vernon Howell. [He] had joined this splinter group of the Branch Davidians that was in Central Texas. He recruited people from all of the over world to come to about 10 miles outside of Waco in Mount Carmel, a compound where he pretty much had iron control over his flock.

He took the name David from the Bible, and Koresh is a version of Sirius, the lamb from the Book of Revelation. He claimed that he was the only person who could open the Seven Seals that would lead his followers to salvation and also launch the apocalypse.

Koresh was charismatic. This was someone who only had a ninth grade education, but he had a knack for memorizing and repeating Bible sections. He went on this recruiting tour around the world and basically seduced people from everywhere from England and Canada to as far afield as Australia by sheer force of personality.

When we speak with the actual true believers, and there are still followers of David Koresh and believe they will seem him again, they have a hard time articulating exactly what drew them to him. There was just this force within him that drove people to pick up their lives and move to Central Texas.  

Why the Branch Davidians drew the attention of federal agents

This happened along the fault line of several core American values. The first one, obviously, is freedom of religion. But at the same time, it’s also a core American value that government has a responsibility to protect the innocent. And over the years, in the late ‘80s in particular, there started to become rumors in the area that Koresh did have an appetite for young girls. Polygamy is obviously illegal and so is having relationships with underage girls.

"This happened along the fault line of several core American values."

Once those rumors got out, the Waco Tribune-Herald started a multi-month investigation, but also local authorities started to look into the group. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives became alarmed when they started to investigate the fact that this group was also compiling a massive stockpile of guns. They found over 200 guns in the compound, some of them acquired illegally. That becomes a serious matter that you’ve got to look into, despite the freedom of religion.

'Sinful Messiah:' Reporting from the Waco Tribune-Herald

The Waco Tribune-Herald had an eight-month investigation that ended in a seven-part series, “ Sinful Messiah .”

The reporters, Mark England and Darlene McCormick, started that investigation because they were concerned that they had heard these rumors about the young girls and that authorities knew about it and weren’t doing anything about it. They started talking to former cult members.

In the end, they interviewed more than 20 former cult members and even got some interview with David Koresh, himself.

They were ready to go out with that series in February 1993 as the ATF was gearing up to take action. In fact, the ATF at one point went to newspaper and said: “You can’t start this series because we’re on the brink of taking some action.”

After everything went down with 51-day standoff and everybody died, one aspect of the story that has never been told before is that the Waco Tribune-Herald and the local television station were accused ... it was their fault, in essence, that everyone had died.

There was a lawsuit and everybody was under a gag order for a couple of years. In the end, it was settled by an insurance company. But the folks who were just doing their jobs, trying to tell this story, they really opposed this idea that they were responsible for what happened. They were doing what good journalists do, which was trying to understand what was going on in their community and report on it.

Interview responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Listen to the full Think interview and subscribe to the podcast . 

Branch Davidian Memorial Park

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What Happened to the Branch Davidians After Waco?

By: Sarah Pruitt

Updated: February 20, 2020 | Original: May 16, 2018

In April 1993, some 75 members of the millennial sect known as the Branch Davidians—including their messianic leader, David Koresh—perished in the blaze that destroyed their compound near Waco, Texas, after a 51-day siege by federal agents. The Branch Davidians fell from public view after the disastrous raid of their compound, but they still have a presence in Texas—and around the world.

The Branch Davidians began as an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and by the early 1960s had gained control of the Mount Carmel compound in Texas from an earlier group.

The UnXplained

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David Koresh, who was then known by his birth name of Vernon Wayne Howell, didn’t arrive until 1981, but within a decade the charismatic young man had become the undisputed leader of the group, taking a number of “spiritual wives” (some as young as 12 or 13 years old) and having numerous children with them.

The Waco siege destroyed the Branch Davidian compound.

The Waco siege began on February 28, 1993, with a raid of the Mount Carmel compound by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) for suspected illegal firearms. Despite protracted talks with Koresh, FBI negotiators failed to convince him to come out of the compound or release his followers, though he insisted they were not planning on a mass suicide.

On April 19, after the FBI used gas in an attempt to force entry into the compound, fires broke out around the property. When investigators were finally able to enter, they found some 75 bodies, including 25 children, inside.

During the siege, 14 adults and 21 children had been allowed to leave the Davidian compound. Nine survivors served time in federal prison on charges related to the initial raid on the compound, in which four ATF agents and six Davidians were killed. All nine had been released by 2013, two decades after the Waco disaster.

The Branch Davidians quickly disbanded.

Though the Branch Davidians essentially vanished as a community in the immediate aftermath of the raid, a few of the group’s members slowly moved back to the Mount Carmel site in the years that followed.

As one of the few male Davidians not to have been imprisoned, Clive Doyle, an Australian-born Texan whose daughter (one of Koresh’s wives) had perished in the fire, took on the role of lay preacher for the group. In 2003, Doyle told a reporter for Texas Monthly magazine that only a dozen or so Davidians were left in Texas, and maybe 100 in the entire world.

The Branch Davidian compound has been re-occupied.

In addition to Doyle’s congregation, a second group of Davidians settled on the site of the disaster, building a church atop the charred foundations of the original compound and placing plaques with the names of Davidians who died in the raid.

Calling themselves Branch, The Lord Our Righteousness, the group is led by Charles Pace, who became a Davidian in 1973 but left Mount Carmel after Koresh’s rise. “I just felt I needed to be here to represent the true church,” Pace told the Associated Press of his 1994 return to the group. Pace sees himself as the legitimate successor of Lois Roden, the previous prophetess of the Branch Davidians, and believes Koresh corrupted the group’s message.

As for Doyle, he left Mount Carmel in 2006 over conflicts with Pace and his followers. According to a 2013 report by NPR, he remained in Waco and continued to hold Bible study weekly with Sheila Martin, another Branch Davidian survivor who left the compound during the standoff with three of her children; her husband and four other children died in the fire.

As Doyle put it then: “We, as survivors of 1993, are looking for David and all those that died either in the shootout, or in the fire. We believe that God will resurrect this special group.”

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Marking 30 years since Branch Davidian tragedy

Christopher de los santos.

• Feb 28, 2023

Former and current ATF agents gather Tuesday at the Peace Officer Memorial in Indian Spring Park to commemorate the four agents killed and more injured while attempting to serve a warrant 30 years ago at the Branch Davidian compound.

• Jerry Larson, Tribune-Herald

A crowd gathers Tuesday at the Peace Officer Memorial in Indian Spring Park to commemorate the four ATF agents killed and more injured while attempting to serve a warrant 30 years ago at the Branch Davidian compound.

Tuesday marked 30 years since the deadly federal raid at the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco that led to further tragedy.

The Feb. 28, 1993, warrant service by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms at Mount Carmel ended in the deaths of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians, and kicked off a standoff that ended in a fire April 19, 1993, that killed 76 more people, including some 25 children.

In an annual remembrance, ATF agents had already placed a wreath of white flowers at the Waco Peace Officer Memorial in downtown Waco’s Indian Spring Park by 10:30 Tuesday morning. Members of an ATF Special Response Team stood next to the wreath at parade rest during the hours ATF agents were at the Branch Davidian compound attempting to serve a search warrant 30 years ago. Every 10 minutes a new group of agents marched up to the wreath and changed positions with those who had been standing with it.

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“As we pass the 30th anniversary, soon there will be no one left in the agency who was there that day,” said Fred Milanowski, special agent in charge of the ATF Houston Field Division. “So, it is very important for the younger agents to carry forward the remembrance.”

Tuesday marked 30 years since the deadly federal raid at the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco. In an annual remembrance, ATF agents observed the occasion at the Waco Peace Officer Memorial in downtown Waco.

Milanowski said he has been the special agent in charge in Houston for seven years. He attends the wreath-laying every year, and Tuesday’s turnout was the largest number of agents and alumni who have attended in a long time, he said.

“Our agents came without malice 30 years ago to serve a search warrant signed by a federal magistrate on the Branch Davidians, and four of them (agents) died that day,” Milanowski said. “No one in law enforcement gets up in the morning wanting or expecting what happened that day.”

Another 28 agents were injured in the 2.5-hour shootout that unfolded before a cease fire gave way to weeks of standoff, according to an account on the ATF website.

“That was a tragic day for the agency, and we promised we would never forget those who died and those who were wounded,” Milanowski said.

A Waco Police Department color guard joins current and former ATF agents at the memorial Tuesday.

The agency holds a remembrance ceremony in Waco every year on Feb. 28, he said. Some years, the turnout is bigger than others, he said.

“This year, the Waco Police Department provided a color guard, and we had a guest speaker who was there that day,” Milanowski said.

Agents also played a recording of the national anthem as the Waco Police Department color guard marched out with the American and Texas flags and two officers carrying ceremonial rifles.

Mount Carmel

Outside of town, Tuesday brought the sound of birds chirping, a high of 86 degrees and a light breeze to 1781 Double EE Ranch Road, a stark contrast to the cold and rainy weather that accompanied the tragedy there 30 years before. If passersby were not looking too closely at the big black gate that reads “The Branch” on the outside, they may never have even noticed the unsuspecting plot.

A handful of visitors wandered the grounds of the Branch Davidian compound Tuesday afternoon, commemorating the 30-year anniversary of the ATF raid.

A stone memorial to the Branch Davidians killed in 1993 stands at the site of the group’s destroyed Mount Carmel facility near Elk.

Not much is left behind of the original compound. An old swimming pool that once was tucked behind the main building now remains one of the only surviving pieces of foundation full of green water. Near the pool is a concrete hole in the ground with a sign that says “Vault where mothers and children were gassed.”

The site now features a stone memorial inside its gates honoring the Branch Davidians who lost their life in the siege and fire. Visitors are also welcome to visit a one-room chapel decorated with memorabilia on the grounds where a speaker was giving a presentation and selling merchandise Tuesday.

Visitors tour the one-room chapel located on what remains of the Branch Davidian compound.

A black gate marks the entrance to the land where the Branch Davidian compound stood.

Visitors tour the grounds of what remains of the Branch Davidian compound.

A man walks down the road leading to the one-room chapel built on the grounds of the Branch Davidian compound.

Tribune-Herald staff writer Kourtney David contributed to this report.

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Shooting tour Moscow

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Old Chinese proverb: if you come to Russia, shoot an AK-47 !

Put-in tours will help you realise this experience! Your guide will meet you at your hotel and bring you with the metro (or a military van as option) to a professional shooting range , located 3 stores underground in an old Soviet beer factory. In this historic and secured environment, you will fire off a selection of iconic Russian weapons  under supervision of a professional instructor .

At the end of the rampage, you’ll get to keep your target with you as a proof of your great success! 🙂

100 % Russian weapons!

We bring to the tip of your trigger finger…

1) The Yarygin Pistol – Since 2003, the standard sidearm for Russian military and law enforcement. Replacing the Makarov. Caliber 9mm

2) The Kalashnikov AK-47 – Legendary Russian military weapon, in service 1949-1974. Its powerful 7.62×39 rounds will shake your foundations.

3)  The Dragunov sniper rifle  – Still in service today for more than 50 years, this semi-automatic rifle can hit a target 1,3km away! With its 7.62×54 rounds, every trigger pull will deliver you a nice adrenaline shot!

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30 shots with the Yarygin pistol

25 shots with the Yarygin pistol + 25 shots with the AK 47

25 shots with the Yarygin pistol + 25 shots with the AK 47 + 10 shots with the Dragunov sniper

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Add to the experience: ask us to pick you up at your hotel with one of our Soviet military vans !

It will be an authentic UAZ 452, a model first built in the 50’s to transport men and military equipment down the snowy or muddy Siberian roads. Thanks to its simplicity and robustness, it is still in service today as ambulances! Ours are fully decorated to reproduce the Soviet atmosphere , equipped with sound systems and even featuring a souvenirs kiosk onboard !

Hotel pick-up (when possible – please contact us)

Transport by metro or in our classic Soviet van

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Militia : from 6 200 RUB to 9 800 RUB / passenger

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Pick-up by military van:  2 000 RUB / group

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At Put-in tours, we put you in our classic Soviet vans to go explore Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Russian culture off the beaten path. Discover our Moscow city guided tour, visit Moscow by night, join our banya & Sergiyev Posad excursion, visit and dine in one of Moscow's oldest monastery or even Luzhniki stadium, before you party on our famous pubcrawl! Original and atypical tours : Shoot AK47 and a bazooka after riding on a tank with our tank & bazooka excursion ! Extreme tours: Fly a fighter jet in Moscow onboard a L-29 or L-39 aircraft!

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Moscow: City Sightseeing by Car/Bus

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Visiting a new city is akin to going on a first date, it is something you will never forget. Many people imagine Moscow as just a bunch of sporadic landmarks: Red Square, the Kremlin, Lenin’s Mausoleum and GUM. There is so much more to this wonderful city than that and even though we only have a few hours, we will do all we can to show you everything we know and love about our capital in one fell swoop. We will take you on a journey through the ages, from centuries ago, right up to the modern day, soaking in the sights of this vast and bustling metropolis. Bright, luxurious and both ancient and modern at the same time, Moscow invites you on a date you’ll never forget!

On our sightseeing bus tour of the city, you will see:

• The wonderfully historic city centre and its unique museums, magnificent cathedrals, the exquisite Chambers of the Romanov Boyars and of course, the famous towering red brick walls of the Kremlin, The charming beauty of the Alexander Garden awaits the capital's guests - a lush green oasis in the midst of the glass and concrete clad metropolis, basking in the etherial aura emanating from the whitewashed stone walls of the restored Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the world- renowned fairytale onion domes of St. Basil's Cathedral and other impressive monumental buildings such as the library built in Lenin's honour - the Russian State Library - and the State Duma.
• The Lubyanka KGB headquarters is notorious to members of older generations and although nowadays, the face of the secret police has changed dramatically, the looming enigmatic building on the waterfront maintains its aura of mystery, shrouded in a variety of murky rumours and dark myths. Then, there’s another of Moscow's main attractions - the marvellous Bolshoi Theatre, yew simply cant leave Moscow without taking in its breathtaking architecture. Engrained in the fabric of Russia's cultural heritage, virtuoso performers such as prima ballerina Galina Ulanova, opera singer Feodor Chaliapin and pianist, composer and conductor Sergei Rachmaninoff once stood centre stage of this vaunted institution.
• The memorial complex on Poklonnaya Hill was constructed in the glory and honour of our heroes who defended our nation in the many crucial battles of the Great Patriotic War (WWII). This is a place that embodies a particularly acute and inextricable link between older ancf younger generations. Moving on to the Moscow International Business Centre, not dubbed ‘Moscow City' for nothing, a true glimpse of the future in the present. This incredible, rather jaw-dropping project in the capital has shown that Moscow has come to accept the age of the skyscraper. Finally, the stunning views from the observation deck at Sparrow Hills will leave professional and amateur photographers alike itching to capture them. How could one resist?

The most beautiful of all the world's cities - lady Moscow invites you out on a date!

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St. Basil's Cathedral

House on the Embankment

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

Vorobyovy Hills

Poklonnaya Hill Poklonnaya Gora

Moscow-City

Alexander garden

Russian State Library

Bolshoi Theatre

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• Excursion Moscow: City Sightseeing by Car/Bus
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In Transit: Notes from the Underground

Jun 06 2018.

Spend some time in one of Moscow’s finest museums.

Subterranean commuting might not be anyone’s idea of a good time, but even in a city packing the war-games treasures and priceless bejeweled eggs of the Kremlin Armoury and the colossal Soviet pavilions of the VDNKh , the Metro holds up as one of Moscow’s finest museums. Just avoid rush hour.

The Metro is stunning and provides an unrivaled insight into the city’s psyche, past and present, but it also happens to be the best way to get around. Moscow has Uber, and the Russian version called Yandex Taxi , but also some nasty traffic. Metro trains come around every 90 seconds or so, at a more than 99 percent on-time rate. It’s also reasonably priced, with a single ride at 55 cents (and cheaper in bulk). From history to tickets to rules — official and not — here’s what you need to know to get started.

A Brief Introduction Buying Tickets Know Before You Go (Down) Rules An Easy Tour

A Brief Introduction

Moscow’s Metro was a long time coming. Plans for rapid transit to relieve the city’s beleaguered tram system date back to the Imperial era, but a couple of wars and a revolution held up its development. Stalin revived it as part of his grand plan to modernize the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s. The first lines and tunnels were constructed with help from engineers from the London Underground, although Stalin’s secret police decided that they had learned too much about Moscow’s layout and had them arrested on espionage charges and deported.

The beauty of its stations (if not its trains) is well-documented, and certainly no accident. In its illustrious first phases and particularly after the Second World War, the greatest architects of Soviet era were recruited to create gleaming temples celebrating the Revolution, the USSR, and the war triumph. No two stations are exactly alike, and each of the classic showpieces has a theme. There are world-famous shrines to Futurist architecture, a celebration of electricity, tributes to individuals and regions of the former Soviet Union. Each marble slab, mosaic tile, or light fixture was placed with intent, all in service to a station’s aesthetic; each element, f rom the smallest brass ear of corn to a large blood-spattered sword on a World War II mural, is an essential part of the whole.

The Metro is a monument to the Soviet propaganda project it was intended to be when it opened in 1935 with the slogan “Building a Palace for the People”. It brought the grand interiors of Imperial Russia to ordinary Muscovites, celebrated the Soviet Union’s past achievements while promising its citizens a bright Soviet future, and of course, it was a show-piece for the world to witness the might and sophistication of life in the Soviet Union.

It may be a museum, but it’s no relic. U p to nine million people use it daily, more than the London Underground and New York Subway combined. (Along with, at one time, about 20 stray dogs that learned to commute on the Metro.)

In its 80+ year history, the Metro has expanded in phases and fits and starts, in step with the fortunes of Moscow and Russia. Now, partly in preparation for the World Cup 2018, it’s also modernizing. New trains allow passengers to walk the entire length of the train without having to change carriages. The system is becoming more visitor-friendly. (There are helpful stickers on the floor marking out the best selfie spots .) But there’s a price to modernity: it’s phasing out one of its beloved institutions, the escalator attendants. Often they are middle-aged or elderly women—“ escalator grandmas ” in news accounts—who have held the post for decades, sitting in their tiny kiosks, scolding commuters for bad escalator etiquette or even bad posture, or telling jokes . They are slated to be replaced, when at all, by members of the escalator maintenance staff.

For all its achievements, the Metro lags behind Moscow’s above-ground growth, as Russia’s capital sprawls ever outwards, generating some of the world’s worst traffic jams . But since 2011, the Metro has been in the middle of an ambitious and long-overdue enlargement; 60 new stations are opening by 2020. If all goes to plan, the 2011-2020 period will have brought 125 miles of new tracks and over 100 new stations — a 40 percent increase — the fastest and largest expansion phase in any period in the Metro’s history.

Facts: 14 lines Opening hours: 5 a.m-1 a.m. Rush hour(s): 8-10 a.m, 4-8 p.m. Single ride: 55₽ (about 85 cents) Wi-Fi network-wide

Buying Tickets

• Ticket machines have a button to switch to English.
• You can buy specific numbers of rides: 1, 2, 5, 11, 20, or 60. Hold up fingers to show how many rides you want to buy.
• There is also a 90-minute ticket , which gets you 1 trip on the metro plus an unlimited number of transfers on other transport (bus, tram, etc) within 90 minutes.
• Or, you can buy day tickets with unlimited rides: one day (218₽/ US$4), three days (415₽/US$7) or seven days (830₽/US$15). Check the rates here to stay up-to-date.
• If you’re going to be using the Metro regularly over a few days, it’s worth getting a Troika card , a contactless, refillable card you can use on all public transport. Using the Metro is cheaper with one of these: a single ride is 36₽, not 55₽. Buy them and refill them in the Metro stations, and they’re valid for 5 years, so you can keep it for next time. Or, if you have a lot of cash left on it when you leave, you can get it refunded at the Metro Service Centers at Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 25 or at Staraya Basmannaya 20, Building 1.
• You can also buy silicone bracelets and keychains with built-in transport chips that you can use as a Troika card. (A Moscow Metro Fitbit!) So far, you can only get these at the Pushkinskaya metro station Live Helpdesk and souvenir shops in the Mayakovskaya and Trubnaya metro stations. The fare is the same as for the Troika card.
• You can also use Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Rules, spoken and unspoken

No smoking, no drinking, no filming, no littering. Photography is allowed, although it used to be banned.

Stand to the right on the escalator. Break this rule and you risk the wrath of the legendary escalator attendants. (No shenanigans on the escalators in general.)

Get out of the way. Find an empty corner to hide in when you get off a train and need to stare at your phone. Watch out getting out of the train in general; when your train doors open, people tend to appear from nowhere or from behind ornate marble columns, walking full-speed.

Always offer your seat to elderly ladies (what are you, a monster?).

An Easy Tour

This is no Metro Marathon ( 199 stations in 20 hours ). It’s an easy tour, taking in most—though not all—of the notable stations, the bulk of it going clockwise along the Circle line, with a couple of short detours. These stations are within minutes of one another, and the whole tour should take about 1-2 hours.

Start at Mayakovskaya Metro station , at the corner of Tverskaya and Garden Ring,  Triumfalnaya Square, Moskva, Russia, 125047.

1. Mayakovskaya.  Named for Russian Futurist Movement poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and an attempt to bring to life the future he imagined in his poems. (The Futurist Movement, natch, was all about a rejecting the past and celebrating all things speed, industry, modern machines, youth, modernity.) The result: an Art Deco masterpiece that won the National Grand Prix for architecture at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It’s all smooth, rounded shine and light, and gentle arches supported by columns of dark pink marble and stainless aircraft steel. Each of its 34 ceiling niches has a mosaic. During World War II, the station was used as an air-raid shelter and, at one point, a bunker for Stalin. He gave a subdued but rousing speech here in Nov. 6, 1941 as the Nazis bombed the city above.

Take the 3/Green line one station to:

2. Belorusskaya. Opened in 1952, named after the connected Belarussky Rail Terminal, which runs trains between Moscow and Belarus. This is a light marble affair with a white, cake-like ceiling, lined with Belorussian patterns and 12 Florentine ceiling mosaics depicting life in Belarussia when it was built.

Transfer onto the 1/Brown line. Then, one stop (clockwise) t o:

3. Novoslobodskaya.  This station was designed around the stained-glass panels, which were made in Latvia, because Alexey Dushkin, the Soviet starchitect who dreamed it up (and also designed Mayakovskaya station) couldn’t find the glass and craft locally. The stained glass is the same used for Riga’s Cathedral, and the panels feature plants, flowers, members of the Soviet intelligentsia (musician, artist, architect) and geometric shapes.

Go two stops east on the 1/Circle line to:

4. Komsomolskaya. Named after the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League, this might just be peak Stalin Metro style. Underneath the hub for three regional railways, it was intended to be a grand gateway to Moscow and is today its busiest station. It has chandeliers; a yellow ceiling with Baroque embellishments; and in the main hall, a colossal red star overlaid on golden, shimmering tiles. Designer Alexey Shchusev designed it as an homage to the speech Stalin gave at Red Square on Nov. 7, 1941, in which he invoked Russia’s illustrious military leaders as a pep talk to Soviet soldiers through the first catastrophic year of the war.   The station’s eight large mosaics are of the leaders referenced in the speech, such as Alexander Nevsky, a 13th-century prince and military commander who bested German and Swedish invading armies.

One more stop clockwise to Kurskaya station,  and change onto the 3/Blue  line, and go one stop to:

5. Baumanskaya.   Opened in 1944. Named for the Bolshevik Revolutionary Nikolai Bauman , whose monument and namesake district are aboveground here. Though he seemed like a nasty piece of work (he apparently once publicly mocked a woman he had impregnated, who later hung herself), he became a Revolutionary martyr when he was killed in 1905 in a skirmish with a monarchist, who hit him on the head with part of a steel pipe. The station is in Art Deco style with atmospherically dim lighting, and a series of bronze sculptures of soldiers and homefront heroes during the War. At one end, there is a large mosaic portrait of Lenin.

Stay on that train direction one more east to:

6. Elektrozavodskaya. As you may have guessed from the name, this station is the Metro’s tribute to all thing electrical, built in 1944 and named after a nearby lightbulb factory. It has marble bas-relief sculptures of important figures in electrical engineering, and others illustrating the Soviet Union’s war-time struggles at home. The ceiling’s recurring rows of circular lamps give the station’s main tunnel a comforting glow, and a pleasing visual effect.

Double back two stops to Kurskaya station , and change back to the 1/Circle line. Sit tight for six stations to:

7. Kiyevskaya. This was the last station on the Circle line to be built, in 1954, completed under Nikita Khrushchev’ s guidance, as a tribute to his homeland, Ukraine. Its three large station halls feature images celebrating Ukraine’s contributions to the Soviet Union and Russo-Ukrainian unity, depicting musicians, textile-working, soldiers, farmers. (One hall has frescoes, one mosaics, and the third murals.) Shortly after it was completed, Khrushchev condemned the architectural excesses and unnecessary luxury of the Stalin era, which ushered in an epoch of more austere Metro stations. According to the legend at least, he timed the policy in part to ensure no Metro station built after could outshine Kiyevskaya.

Change to the 3/Blue line and go one stop west.

8. Park Pobedy. This is the deepest station on the Metro, with one of the world’s longest escalators, at 413 feet. If you stand still, the escalator ride to the surface takes about three minutes .) Opened in 2003 at Victory Park, the station celebrates two of Russia’s great military victories. Each end has a mural by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, who also designed the “ Good Defeats Evil ” statue at the UN headquarters in New York. One mural depicts the Russian generals’ victory over the French in 1812 and the other, the German surrender of 1945. The latter is particularly striking; equal parts dramatic, triumphant, and gruesome. To the side, Red Army soldiers trample Nazi flags, and if you look closely there’s some blood spatter among the detail. Still, the biggest impressions here are the marble shine of the chessboard floor pattern and the pleasingly geometric effect if you view from one end to the other.

Keep going one more stop west to:

9. Slavyansky Bulvar.  One of the Metro’s youngest stations, it opened in 2008. With far higher ceilings than many other stations—which tend to have covered central tunnels on the platforms—it has an “open-air” feel (or as close to it as you can get, one hundred feet under). It’s an homage to French architect Hector Guimard, he of the Art Nouveau entrances for the Paris M é tro, and that’s precisely what this looks like: A Moscow homage to the Paris M é tro, with an additional forest theme. A Cyrillic twist on Guimard’s Metro-style lettering over the benches, furnished with t rees and branch motifs, including creeping vines as towering lamp-posts.

Stay on the 3/Blue line and double back four stations to:

10. Arbatskaya. Its first iteration, Arbatskaya-Smolenskaya station, was damaged by German bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1953, and designed to double as a bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war, although unusually for stations built in the post-war phase, this one doesn’t have a war theme. It may also be one of the system’s most elegant: Baroque, but toned down a little, with red marble floors and white ceilings with gilded bronze c handeliers.

Jump back on the 3/Blue line  in the same direction and take it one more stop:

11. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). Opened in 1938, and serving Red Square and the Kremlin . Its renowned central hall has marble columns flanked by 76 bronze statues of Soviet heroes: soldiers, students, farmers, athletes, writers, parents. Some of these statues’ appendages have a yellow sheen from decades of Moscow’s commuters rubbing them for good luck. Among the most popular for a superstitious walk-by rub: the snout of a frontier guard’s dog, a soldier’s gun (where the touch of millions of human hands have tapered the gun barrel into a fine, pointy blade), a baby’s foot, and a woman’s knee. (A brass rooster also sports the telltale gold sheen, though I am told that rubbing the rooster is thought to bring bad luck. )

Now take the escalator up, and get some fresh air.

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