ONE OF MOSCOW'S hearts of darkness lies a few blocks from the Belarussky train station. There, inside the 200-year-old cells of Butyrsky Prison, 20 men are waiting. They say the wait itself is worse than its conclusion: an executioner's bullet in the back of the neck. "I'm waiting the last days of my life here", says Gennady Ivanov, 35, a tall and lanky well-spoken former tour bus driver. Ivanov was arrested for murder in 1988, and sentenced to death a year later.


Ivanov shares Cell No. 77 on Butyrsky Prison's death row with Grigory Kim, 31, who was arrested in 1989 and convicted of three gang-related killings in 1991. The single dim lightbulb in the cell casts just enough blue glow to illuminate their sallow complexions and the look of defeat in their dark-ringed eyes.


Prison officials appealed Ivanov's case to President Boris Yeltsin, although the defendant himself didn't cooperate. "I'm innocent", he says. "This is my form of protest. If they think I'm guilty, let them shoot me".


In another country, men like Ivanov might not be on death row -- despite their brutal crimes. But in Russia, the only punishment more severe than a 15-year prison sentence is death. This and other factors have left Russia with one of the world's highest execution rates.


In 1991, 70 people were executed in Russia. By comparison, 14 people were executed during the same time period in the United States. On the whole, Russia executes more people than most countries, with the exception of China and Iran. During the first six months of this year, 95 people have been sentenced to death in Russia. Two years ago, the number was even higher: in 1990, 171 people were executed here.


Russia's justice minister, Nikolai Fyodorov, says he personally opposes the death penalty, but sees no prospect for change. He attributes the high rate to "the Russian soul".


"I'm personally convinced that the Russian people won't be able to abolish the death penalty", Fyodorov said. "While I'm personally against it, as a politician I won't put it on the agenda. We have more realistic tasks to put forward".


The record was even higher during the Communist era: 770 people were sentenced to death in the Soviet Union in 1985 alone, while 20 sentences were commuted to 15 year prison terms, according to recently released Justice Ministry statistics. The rise in executions under Communism was a dramatic jump from pre-revolutionary times. From 1826 to 1906 612 people were executed in Russia -- almost as many as were executed in 1985 alone.


"The death penalty problem is greater here than anywhere in the civilized world", said Viktor Kogan-Yasny, head of the Society Against the Death Penalty and Torture. "It is the basis of a moral or immoral society".


He added, however, that "it's very difficult "to deal with public opinion here because most people strongly support the death penalty on a highly emotional level".


According to a 1991 Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty survey of 2, 000 Russians, 62


percent of those polled supported the death penalty. Researchers from the institute later attributed the support to an increase in violent crime since 1988.


"They love the death penalty here", said Rachel Denber, research associate for the Moscow office of Helsinki Watch, an international human rights group.


"The philosophy under Communism was that you could either reform someone through labor or you couldn't. There was no such thing as life imprisonment, so the death penalty was useful and necessary. Punishment was to try to reform people, but also to protect society".


And now, said Gennady Oreshkin, chief warden at Butyrsky Prison, Russians are so preoccupied with the country's current social and economic crisis, including the rising crime rate -- that nobody wants to talk about the death penalty.


"Today Russia has more important subjects to worry about", Oreshkin said. "I support the abolition of the death penalty, but not today.


We need economic and political stability first. Nobody is in control now. Let parliament and the deputies solve these problems first".


A new criminal code introduced by President Boris Yeltsin is now under discussion in the Russian parliament. The proposed code would not abolish the death penalty, but would create a 25-year sentence and a life sentence. The draft, Fyodorov said, would effectively end political death sentences and limit capital offenses to certain cases of premeditated murder, terrorism and some "military crimes".


IN FACT, EXECUTIONS have decreased since liberalization of Soviet society began under Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika program. Starting in the mid-1980s, people convicted of economic-crimes have not received death sentences, although the crimes are technically still on the books as punishable by death.


The case of the serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, who was sentenced to death this month, is an example of why the death penalty should be abolished, activists say. While the Russian police solved 1, 000 unrelated crimes during their hunt for Chikatilo, one man, Alexander Kravchenko, was executed for two murders that Chikatilo later confessed to.


The death penalty has been abolished in Russia many times since Empress Elizabeth first abolished it in 1753, although it was soon reinstated by Catherine II. It was then abolished in 1917 by the Provisional Government, which then reinstated it so that it could then be abolished, and then brought back, by the Bolsheviks. It was briefly abolished again in 1920, and allegedly abolished in 1947 by Stalin, who reinstated it in 1950.


Under Russian law, those convicted of a capital crime can appeal through the courts and then directly to the president. The process is supposed to take about one year, but often takes longer, said Oleg Gubaidulin, deputy warden at Butyrsky Prison, where some prisoners have been appealing their sentences since 1989.


The number of successful appeals has increased from 7 percent in 1989 to 41 percent last year, according to Fyodoroy. But not everybody can wait for an appeal, he added. About 10 percent of Russia's death row prisoners commit suicide while waiting for a response.


People sentenced to death are shot by a single executioner in the back of the neck.


Interior Ministry, Justice Ministry and prison officials refuse to say where Russia's prisoners are executed. They do say, however, that executions do not occur in Moscow. One prison official said convicts are executed in a prison in Tatarstan.


The prosecutor, prison doctor and warden witness the execution, said Vladimir Zimonyenko, a Justice Ministry spokesman. If more than one person is shot on the same day, the executions are carried out separately.


While death by firing squad may seem brutal, it may be better than such methods as lethal injection, which can take a painfully long time. Doctors rarely work as executioners, and inexperienced people often administer the injection, said Denber, of Helsinki Watch, who added that "no method is humane".


As the debate rages, prisoners like Ivanov continue to wait for death. Ivanov, who seems to have thinned beneath his uniform, hasn't seen his 13-year-old son, Yevgeny, since he was arrested in 1988. "I agree that there should be some sort of punishment from the state, but not death", he said, sitting on the raised narrow slab of concrete that is his bed.


And yet, he said death is preferable to life prison". The worst thing is when you're sitting and waiting", said Ivanov, his eyes red, his manner agitated.


Kirn, Ivanov's friend and cell mate, agreed. "I understand in prison that there are things in the world more honorable than physical death", he said, as he sat by a picture of his 4-year-old son, Yevgeny. "For me, it would be better to be killed than to stay in prison forever".