"I "crazy patriot"
In 2016, Stanislav Karmakskikh, an ordinary 55-year-old carpenter from Tomsk, began researching his family history and discovered that his great-grandfather had been a policeman in Narym and had guarded Joseph Stalin during his exile. Before this, Stanislav hadn't been particularly interested in politics, as he was a religious man and considered it all "secular." But now he actively supports the NKVD Investigative Prison Museum, drives a taxi, and teaches his passengers about the repressions. In March 2022, he was fined for participating in an anti-war rally.
— Why did you become interested in your family history?
I had a friend like that, and she once asked: don't you know your family history? I then replied, why would I even need that? We'll come to God, and there we'll definitely have everything about all our relatives. And what they thought, what kind of people they were, where they ended up, and so on. She told me that this is not good. And that only sheep don't know their family history. The most they know is their mother. They don't know their father, they don't know their grandparents. They're not interested. That really struck me: the comparison to a sheep. I went to the archives. And I found a lot of things. My own great-grandfather Titkov Fedor Nilovich He served in the police in Narym and guarded Stalin in exile. I found in the archives a report my great-grandfather wrote to Stalin about his escape. I wanted to find his service record, but I couldn't find it. However, I did find his explanatory note to one of his complaints.
It was difficult to tell what kind of person my great-grandfather was by his character, because there were witnesses who said he was cruel. He beat people. There's a transcript of a survey of Narym residents when the Museum of Political Exile was being established. At that time, they were particularly interested in Titkov. And one of the locals said my great-grandfather beat people. They called him a sadist. They said the others were more simple-minded, but this one was cruel. But that's just one person speaking.
In 1920, my great-grandfather was arrested and sentenced to a term in a concentration camp. He was released early, as it turned out, thanks to the help of the former political prisoners he guarded. Alexei Rykov helped him get a reduced sentence, and Yakov Sverdlov helped him get a job at the Economic Council. After prison, he worked various jobs, apparently without much success. In 1930, his voting rights were revoked, and I know nothing of his fate after that. I hoped to learn more about my great-grandfather's life when I received the criminal case file from the FSB, but it turned out he hadn't written anything extraneous. So they wouldn't find anything later. But his brother Titkov Serapion Nilovich, My great-great-uncle, when he was taken away, told me everything. About how my brother served as a police inspector, and then as a policeman under Kolchak.
By the way, the FSB took three statements from me saying I wouldn't take revenge on the descendants of those who killed my relatives. They're still terrified of that. Five people in my family suffered under Soviet rule. Two died, and three served time. I'll be looking for all the details about them, too. Well, after that, I got hooked, went to the NKVD Investigative Prison Museum, and started volunteering. I even found my wife there.
— Have you started volunteering on a larger scale, organizing expeditions, erecting crosses in memory of the repressed?
"One day I was sitting and watching Memorial videos. Something was happening, they were doing something. I thought, 'Why aren't we organizing an expedition?' The "Dispossessed Memory Center" had just opened in the village of Palochka. I called them, and the idea for an expedition came up: to find the barge that transported the special settlers. TV2 later made a film about it. There were 43 people on our expedition, mostly Orthodox youth from the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. We erected crosses, found the barge, and held a memorial service.
— What do you think motivates people to study the history of memory?
— For those who went on expeditions with me, the reason was personal. The injustice of the authorities, the injustice of the state. And the idea of, “Why dredge up the past?”, like, “When you chop down a forest, the chips fly!” is deeply offensive to those who mourn their ancestors who died of hunger. Some don’t accept this reality, don’t understand that it was terrifying. If anyone wants to see what it was like, read about any concentration camp; it was the same. And even more terrifying. I’ve always been interested in the reactions of teenagers: when they went there, and when they went back. There, at first, they were giggling, ha-ha, some kind of barge. And when they came back, they said it was terrible. Never again. There were 10, and only two survived. It’s horrific. It really affected them.
But locals perceive the history of the repressions differently. There are those for whom, again, it's a personal story, while others arrived later, during the logging industry, and they don't perceive it at all. Many are downright Stalinists. Because this is a village, they watch television because they have nothing better to do.
And what about local officials? I'd call it bipolar. It seems like there's a rehabilitation law, but on the other hand, they watch TV and realize the tide is shifting. That we're going in the wrong direction, and the repressed are enemies again, and that everything was right. And you might think you're helping, but it might backfire.
— You mentioned the law on rehabilitation and the memory of victims of repression. But, as we see, all of this is now being slowly destroyed. Why?
— Because we still have an imperial mentality. If we want to be cool and better than everyone else, then we have to extol everything that was best in the country. If nothing happened, then we invent it. And the bad—the terrible and cruel—we have to hush up, as if it never happened. And if hushing it up isn't possible, then we have to come up with a justification: like, it had to be that way. I drive a taxi now and talk to people. Recently, a woman was driving with me, and I started talking about Stalin's repressions, and she got indignant. So I asked, if the Russian people are so peaceful, then how did we end up in Alaska from Kievan Rus'? She kept silent, and then said, "It had to be that way." In such a steely tone. People make things up so their lives aren't so miserable. And propaganda uses this as its shield and squeezes out of people what it wants to squeeze out.
Another time, a woman was traveling with me and she said that war is necessary, like, look at the boys. They paint their nails, grow their hair long, and wear fitted shirts. They're a disgrace, not boys. So I said: what, do you want to shove these nerdy boys into the trenches so they become brutal, hairy and bearded, Orthodox Christians, and fathers of many children? They'll just get killed there, and that's it. Brutality doesn't create masculinity in a man. It's born through responsibility, when you take responsibility for your family, your country, your city, your work. But not through beatings; through beatings, a wolf pack is born.
— And why does propaganda have such an effect on people?
People have a memory aberration: we remember the good, but try to forget the bad. And not everyone has critical thinking. It's easier for people to agree with this than to rebel. So you don't get hit in the head. Once, a passenger told me exactly this: born in Mordor, be an orc and don't show off. But when you start talking to people, you sometimes make them think. I start saying that if everything is good and the way it should be, then why did they kill the inventor of the Katyusha? Why did they execute half the T-34 designers? And people ask: why? This is how you can work with zombified people. Those who haven't yet lost the ability to listen.
People need to believe in something. If they're not proud of their country, their lives will be miserable. Because they understand they have something to repent of. That they feel guilty, and so on. But the authorities say, "You can't instill guilt in us." So the criminal says, "I won't repent, I did everything right." But maybe it's easier to repent and live like a normal person.
"Have you always thought so? Were you interested in politics? Or does anyone who starts engaging in repression also start taking an interest in politics?"
— You know, I wasn't always interested in it. In 1995, I came to church and became a believer. I was active; we traveled around the region, preached, built houses of prayer. And I believed that politics was all earthly. That all this was unnecessary, God would sort it out. And we should all call people to God, and when people come to God, they will become righteous. And all this nastiness will stop. And politics is a dead end. So what's the point of all this? And that's what I thought until 2016. And then, there was my family history, my participation in rallies.
— And what rallies did you participate in?
— I participated, the last one—an anti-war one—was on March 6, 2022. I was fined after that, and since then I haven't gone to rallies because the next charge is a criminal offense. I try not to get caught. Incidentally, because of that fine, they banned me from organizing a religious procession in memory of a Tomsk repressed woman. They said you were on notice. They said we hadn't coordinated it, and that nothing could be discredited. We're going on a religious procession in memory of the repressed, in memory of Tatyana Tomskaya. Do you think I go everywhere with a poster? But they banned me, just in case. We actually arrived at the start of the bike ride, near the Tomsk-II station.
— Yes, many people were detained at that anti-war rally. How were you detained?
— I was holding a reproduction of Vereshchagin's painting "The Apotheosis of War." The police walked past me, giving me sidelong glances, but leaving me alone. Meanwhile, they were dragging out others who were holding placards. A small, mean voice inside me started saying, "Oh, thank God, it wasn't me." I didn't want to get into trouble with the police. And then they dragged out a girl—a schoolgirl—and after that I went up to the police, showed them this painting, and said: "This is our future if we don't stop." The police looked at each other and were like, "So, are we taking this?" "We are." And off they went. That's how I ended up in jail. I wasn't answering my phone, and my wife later saw on the news that I'd been detained.
The police were perfect back then. Such sweethearts. They took us to the Leninsky District Police Department. It was in Kashtak, where the execution grounds were. So I started giving them a lecture. Well, they kept me longer than anyone else, and I had to deal with the Center E officers. They came too and started asking one guy: how did you get here, where do you live, maybe they sent you here. And he told them everything. And they started twisting the guy. And I was like: guys, Article 51. And the E officers told me: what did you say? We're going to drag you off to jail now. Later, when we were standing in line for the report, I approached one of the guys in the hallway and said: you'll be utterly ashamed later of what you're doing now. He asked me: do you have relatives there or something? I said yes, my wife's relatives. Well, he lost interest in me and left.
Incidentally, when they brought me the warning about the inadmissibility of holding a bike ride, the major who had detained me was among them. When we met, he smiled: "I know you, Stanislav Yuryevich; I arrested you at a rally." What a boast.
— Are you planning to leave Russia?
I lived in Sweden for six months. It's a wonderful country, wonderful people, everything is wonderful, but I'm a die-hard patriot and a man of the old school. This is my homeland, and I'm not leaving. I can't just live anywhere else. I can't see myself anywhere but Russia. Even with all the current antics of our country, I want things to be normal here, and normal for my children and for everyone.
By the way, it was in Sweden that I got the idea tackle Birdhouses. I don't make them much anymore, I just sell the leftovers. So, in Sweden, every courtyard has metal lanterns with candles inside. They're shaped like houses, medieval castles, and so on. I started making lanterns out of plywood, but they ended up being used as bird feeders. So I switched to birdhouses. I have a birdhouse that's a carpenter, an astrologer. There's a birdhouse in the image of Stalin. There are two birdhouses: one of an NKVD officer who kills a prisoner. People are constantly harping on this pair, writing denunciations, saying it offends our feelings. They tried to persuade me to take it down, but I let the matter slide, and they backed off.
— What do you think will happen to Russia?
Everything will be fine with Russia, but I'm afraid it won't be anytime soon. We will eventually become more human, we will become normal people, unless, of course, Christ comes first.
