Time to read: 16 minutes(s)

Author: Nina Andreeva

Stalin's repressions in Russia are gradually becoming an "inconvenient past." Unsightly details are being removed from school textbooks, replaced by narratives deemed "correct" by the state, and organizations dedicated to preserving memory are being liquidated or labeled as foreign agents. But in many cities—from Ural villages to the Pole of Cold in Yakutia—memory lives on thanks to individual initiative.

The heroes of this text are ordinary school teachers who publish books, create school museums, and take children to memorial sites to honor the names of those executed. We've collected the stories of those who continue their work even as the topic of Soviet terror gradually fades from public view.

Midday. A cattle car and a stone from the roadside.

Valentina Pavlovna Shcherbakova has been working as a history teacher at the school in the village of Poldnevaya, which is located eighty kilometers from Yekaterinburg, for 59 years.

During Soviet times, history was taught here like everywhere else: revolution, victories, five-year plans. What happened in the village in the late 1930s was discussed in whispers in kitchens. Valentina Pavlovna overheard snatches of adults' conversations: someone had been taken away, someone had disappeared. The word "repression" was mentioned, but without details; no one explained anything. Everything changed in the 1990s, when she came across the "Book of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression in the Sverdlovsk Region." Volume 4.

"Someone gave it to me as a gift, I opened it and started looking for my own, the Poludnevskaya ones," Shcherbakova says. "And I found them. It turned out there were eleven such books. I went to the library, to the archives, and looked through all the volumes. I wrote down 71 names of residents of our village."

As it turned out, in February 1938, a freight car, a cattle car, pulled up to the Poldnevaya railway station. Within 24 hours, about 50 men were arrested—the car was packed to capacity. Almost none of them returned home; more than 40 were shot in one night—March 7, 1938. Their bodies were dumped in communal pits at the 12th kilometer of the Moscow Highway near Yekaterinburg.

When Valentina Pavlovna realized the scale of what had happened, she decided it shouldn't remain in the files. She enlisted the help of schoolchildren. Together, they walked through the village—literally, from house to house. The children of those very same "enemies of the people" were still alive at the time.

"We collected information bit by bit," the teacher explains. "We visited the elderly and recorded their stories. People recalled how their fathers were taken away. Three people would come: a policeman, the village council chairman, and a party member. The man would return from work, tired, and they wouldn't even let him change his clothes. They'd take him away into the unknown."

One resident recounted how his father, a two-year-old with a two-grade education, was taken away. "What kind of spy is he? What kind of enemy is he?" Valentina exclaimed indignantly. "He worked in the forest his whole life. And then it turned out: a neighbor reported on a neighbor, there was a dispute, or simply a plan for arrests was handed down from above."

The collected materials formed the basis of the school museum exhibit and the book "From Noon to Noon," which Valentina Pavlovna published herself. But a monument was also needed—a place to lay flowers, as there were no graves for those executed. In 2012, Shcherbakova and her husband, then the head of the village administration, traveled to the district center to ask for help.

"They turned us down. They said, 'There's no such monument in Polevskoy, and you want to put it up in your Poldnevaya? Why?'" Shcherbakova recalls.

Valentina Pavlovna appealed to her fellow villagers. The idea was supported by a group of teachers, children of the repressed chipped in, and a local council member contributed financially. Artist Valentin Efremov drew the monument's design for free. Shcherbakova and her husband found the memorial stone—a block of green serpentine—themselves in a waste rock dump.

The monument was unveiled on September 1, 2012. The names of all those found were carved into the black marble. Every year in October, before the fall break, schoolchildren, along with Valentina Pavlovna, visit the monument. The children light candles, carry carnations, and recite poems by Akhmatova, Gumilev, Shalamov, and Tsvetaeva—those who themselves suffered under the Soviet terror.

"I've never seen any ridicule or mistrust from the children," Valentina Pavlovna shares. "The seventh-graders come for the first time, and I see seriousness on their faces. They understand that this isn't a textbook, it's the story of their neighbors, their families."

Sometimes the work is difficult. Valentina admits that it's difficult to cope with so much grief; she often gets sick. But she has no plans to stop. Recently, a fellow villager brought a whole folder of documents about his grandfather, found in the archives. Other residents have found relatives among the repressed Poles—the Anetsky family.

"It's really gratifying when people learn the truth," says Valentina. "That their parents weren't enemies, but ordinary working people. For them, the truth triumphs. At least now. When I first spoke with the relatives of the repressed, they had this attitude—you know how to put it—they considered themselves second-class citizens, enemies of the people. Sometimes, no one even wanted to sit at the same desk with them in class. And they weren't accepted into the Komsomol. But when all this was restored, I think people took it positively and with spirit—that after all, they hadn't been rejected, they were remembered, their good names restored."

Valentina Shcherbakova is convinced that if the history of a small village is forgotten, the history of the country will be forgotten as well. And that cannot be allowed to happen.

Alexey Mosin, historian, chairman of the Yekaterinburg Memorial Society:
"It's become very difficult for us to communicate with teachers now. We used to have many connections: more than a hundred teachers participated in the school competition "Man in History. Russia – 20th Century." But when the International Memorial was liquidated, this project was effectively stopped as well.
We've tried to reestablish contacts, but people are simply afraid. I've contacted historians we've worked with for years, but now almost no one is responding. Many don't want to risk dealing with an organization with its status as a foreign agent (the repressive status of the Yekaterinburg Memorial Society), and we don't want to let them down—persecution practices are becoming more severe. While we used to invite schools to the unveiling of "Last Address" plaques or on excursions to the 12th kilometer (a memorial to victims of repression near Yekaterinburg), we've now been banned from educational activities under threat of criminal prosecution. We exist under the sword of Damocles, and contacts with teachers are being severed right before our eyes.
The situation now is this: somewhere they're unveiling new monuments to Stalin, but condemning Stalin's crimes is becoming dangerous. You could be accused of extremism or terrorism, and ties to "foreign agents" like us only make matters worse.

"Doriy" means road. Oymyakon and the traces of repressed poets.

In 1969, university graduate Maria Boyarova returned home to the Oymyakon Ulus in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). She came to the village of Tomtor to teach Russian language and literature, and had no plans to become a historian or museum curator. It was chance that decided her—or rather, a collection of poems by the Ural poet Boris Ruchev.

Spiridon Sleptsov, Maria Polikarpovna's son, recounts how his mother was struck by a simple recognition: she came across the word "Oymyakon" in a book written by a complete stranger. The poet had written about the taiga fire of 1941, the extensive damage it caused, and how he, a former worker, was transferred to the village of Kuidusun as a paramedic.

"Mom was shocked," Spiridon recalls. "Kuydusun is only three kilometers from our Tomtor. She wrote a letter to Ruchev, but received no reply."

Maria Polikarpovna didn't stop there. Together with her students, she began searching for old-timers who might remember the paramedic-poet. This proved difficult: almost no one remained in the road workers' settlement who had lived there during the war. A reply only came in 1973, after the poet's death, from his widow. It turned out that Ruchyev had received letters but was too ill to reply. A correspondence ensued, and photographs and memories began pouring into Tomtor.

But the real revelation was a story told by Maria's uncle, the Yakut writer Nikolai Zabolotsky-Chyskhaan. He once met Ruchyev in Moscow, and Ruchyev recalled an incident from his paramedic practice in Yakutia: he once had to assist a woman, a collective farm worker, in labor right on the highway. The conditions were harsh, the mother nearly died, but the baby survived. A healthy boy.

"My mother immediately compiled a list of Yakut men born in those parts between 1941 and 1943," Spiridon explains of her search methods. "And they found him. That boy's name was Doriy—from the word for 'road.' His mother was no longer alive, but his family remembered her stories about the 'young and handsome Russian doctor' who saved their lives."

Thus, through one human fate, the vast, hidden history of the region began to unravel. It emerged that Oymyakon was not just a dot on the map, but a place of exile for many famous people: Varlam Shalamov, Aldan-Semenov, Novik-Pyayun.

"All of Oymyakon is former Gulag territory, crisscrossed from west to east by the infamous Kolyma Highway, on which our village stands," explains Spiridon. "There were about thirty camps here. It's impossible to avoid this topic if you're interested in the history of the region. Moreover, it affected our family: Maria Polikarpovna's father was also repressed, as was Uncle Zabolotsky-Chyskhaan."

Spiridon himself remained, as he puts it, "an outside observer" for a long time. While he was a schoolboy, he simply watched his mother and father (he was the school principal and officially founded the museum in 1991) spend their evenings writing letters and working on the displays.

"Everything was done by hand, after work or on weekends," he says. "The correspondence lasted for years—letters took weeks to arrive. Much was classified, for example, the history of the Alsib route (an air route between Alaska and the USSR, built and opened in 1942)."

Spiridon joined the work as an adult, when he moved to Yakutsk. Now his role is the school museum's "digital back office." He works in archives and libraries, scanning documents, laying out brochures, and working his magic on old photos in Photoshop. The internet has sped up searches exponentially, but the essence remains the same: piecing together history, bit by bit.

For him, this work has its own special meaning. He says it was here, at the Pole of Cold, that people regained their ability to speak after the hell of the camps.

"I'm proud that our region became the place where Ruchev and Shalamov took up their pens again," Spiridon admits. "Ruchev wrote the 'Red Sun' cycle here, and Shalamov wrote his famous 'Blue Notebook.'"

Thanks to the museum, schoolchildren from a remote village performed in Moscow and Magnitogorsk, winning competitions. According to Spiridon, the children considered it prestigious to be part of Maria Polikarpovna's circle—they began to feel more important there, their horizons broadened, their literary skills developed, and they learned to perform. Now over 80, Maria Polikarpovna has retired, and the museum's activities have somewhat diminished, but the family strives to maintain the exhibition.

When asked why this "inconvenient past" is being dredged up, Spiridon replies: "This is one of the dark pages of our homeland. No matter how you look at it, it won't fade. You can close your eyes, but the memory of the repressions cannot be erased. And we need to educate, if only to prevent this memory from becoming overgrown with speculation and lies."

Alexey Mosin:
"A teacher once asked me, 'At what age can we start telling children about the repressions? From ninth grade?' I replied, 'Why not earlier?' I'm convinced that we can talk about this even with second-graders. Of course, the question is how to say it.
If I had to explain it to little kids, I'd say it like this: "Children, imagine you're living 80 years ago. You're having dinner with your mom and dad, drinking tea, and telling each other about your day. You go to bed, and at night, people in uniform come to you. They turn your house upside down, take your mom and dad away, and you'll never see them again. And you're sent to an orphanage."
For a child, this is a clear and terrifying image. The key here is to draw on family history. We had a project called "WORLD—My Family History," where the children explored their roots. They drew family trees: some as a constellation, others as a house with a roof. And through family history, they uncovered the history of the country, a history in which nothing can be changed, but which must not be forgotten."

The Russian North. The "German" School and the Bones of Makarikha

For some countingBetween 1929 and 1945, approximately 25 residents of the Arkhangelsk region were repressed. Not all of them served sentences for political offenses. Many were convicted of "economic" crimes. Furthermore, Pomorye became a site of mass exile for prisoners and people from other regions. The region housed several camps, including the infamous SLON (Solovki Special Purpose Camp). Two teachers from different cities—Novodvinsk and Kotlas—are dedicated to preserving this memory.

In the town of papermakers, old-timers still sometimes call School No. 2 “German” or “Red.” words The nickname, according to the current director of the school museum, Lyudmila Kislitsyna, wasn't a coincidence. In the 1940s, people began to gather here, at the walls of the Arkhangelsk Pulp and Paper Mill (APPM) under construction.

The plant's launch was postponed several times in the 1930s, and it was decided to use prison labor to expedite the process. At that time, it wasn't yet a city, but a settlement named after Kliment Voroshilov. Prisoners lived in barracks, and after the plant's launch, they were converted into barracks. "moved" repressed Germans - labor army members (Soviet ethnic Germans from the Volga region and other regions of the USSR, mobilized during the war into the so-called "labor army" for forced labor) and repatriated after the end of the war.

The Germans lived in a special settlement. The school museum has a model of it, recreated based on eyewitness accounts. It featured barracks surrounded by a high wall, 24-hour security, and a commandant. After the special settlement was lifted, the Novodvinsk Germans were forbidden to return to their pre-war homes. The barracks were eventually demolished, and the "German school" moved to a new building in the 1980s; it now houses School No. 2.

The school history museum was established in 1985. It publishes a newspaper, a museum bulletin, and operates a school radio station. Students conduct historical research and write papers on the fate of the repressed residents of Novodvinsk. words Lyudmila Khristoforovna, studying history teaches us not to repeat the mistakes of past years, to avoid senseless cruelty and the punishment of innocent people.

"Dozens of children of those displaced people used to come to school for memorial meetings," says Kislitsyna. "Time is passing. But the descendants of those people still live here, working at the plant their grandfathers built. For them, our museum is the only place where their family history is recognized and preserved."

Several hundred kilometers away, in Kotlas, a major Gulag transit hub, works Militina Klapiyuk. She teaches history at School No. 17 and directs the Makarikha Museum, which she opened with her students in 2002.

In 1941, after the decree "On the Resettlement of Volga Germans" was issued, tens of thousands of people were deported to Kotlas. Many Germans who live in Komi today passed through Kotlas because they served in the labor army. And it was here that the labor columns were formed. They built the railway to Vorkuta and the railway bridge across the Malaya Severnaya Dvina (about 25 people died during the construction of the crossing).

Makarikha is a district on the northern outskirts of Kotlas. From 1929 to 1934, families of special settlers were held here. They were buried here, often without coffins and in communal pits. In the 1940s and early 1950s, the same cemetery was used to bury deceased labor army workers and special settlers from the village of Limenda, as well as German prisoners of war who died in the city's hospitals, in unmarked graves.

Militina Vladimirovna is a hereditary teacher and researcher. In Kotlas, she brought As a child, Militina's parents returned from the Virgin Lands. Her passion for excavations has been with her since her student days: during her field trips in the Komi forests, she found burial grounds from the 12th to 14th centuries, arrowheads, and even Persian coins. But upon returning to school, she realized that she needed to dig not for medieval relics, but for the history that lay literally beneath her feet. About 20 years ago, Militina and her students began researching the site, publishing their findings and compiling them into a scientific article titled "Collecting Bones Isn't Scary, Walking on Them Is. The History of the Makarikha Cemetery."

For Militina Klapiuk, a museum isn't just dusty shelves. She turns history into action. Together with schoolchildren, they stage mini-performances and reconstruct the events of those years using documents. The school museum houses models of destroyed churches and the personal belongings of exiles. "History is the memory of a people, and a person cannot exist without memory," she believes.

Alexey Mosin:
"Not everyone is afraid to preserve the memory of Soviet terror, and this is encouraging. There are examples of memory growing from below. Recently, in the Ural town of Degtyarsk, local residents themselves volunteered to participate in the "Return of Names" campaign. More than two hundred people there were repressed. People gathered At the memorial, they selected a selection from the Book of Remembrance and read the names of their fellow countrymen. They now plan to do this every year.
Residents of a building in Yekaterinburg agreed to install "Last Address" plaques. But then someone filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office, and now the residents are under pressure, claiming the plaques were installed illegally. While they remain in place, preserving these memorials is becoming increasingly difficult. As the dictator's image is being rehabilitated, the memory of his victims is being repressed.
Descendants also often contact me. I found the archive file of my great-great-grandfather, an 80-year-old peasant who was executed, and wrote a brochure about it, "What Was Our Mother Guilty Of?" The history of a country is shaped by such personal stories. If we don't forget the history of one family or one small village, we will preserve the history of the entire country."

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This publication was prepared in collaboration with the New Tab media outlet.