Stalin monuments versus stones of sorrow
Why the history of the 1941 deportations has once again become an "undesirable topic" in Russia. An interview with Latvian director Dzintra Geka.
Author: Andrey Filimonov.
June 14 marks the 85th anniversary of the first deportation of residents of the Baltic states to Siberia. In just a few days in June 1941, 43 people were deported from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. If not for the German invasion, which forced the NKVD to shift its focus to other tasks, the number could have been higher.
Latvian documentary filmmaker Dzintra Geka has been exploring the forced deportation of Latvians to Siberia for a quarter of a century. She makes films, records interviews, and publishes books that collect the names of people whose fates remained suppressed from public memory for decades.
Geka began working on the film "Children of Siberia" in 2000. A newspaper ad quickly attracted 180 responses. Thus began a multi-year project that has grown into a vast archive of memories: nearly a thousand interviews with those deported in 1941 and 1949, as well as those born in Siberia.
NeMoscow spoke with Dzintra Geka about her trips to Siberia and how the history of repression in Russia is once again becoming an undesirable topic amid the invasion of Ukraine.
— Dzintra, is the preservation of the memory of repressions and deportations supported at the state level in Latvia?
"And not just in Latvia. We're just returning from Tartu, where there was a major conference at the National Museum, at a high, almost governmental level. There were people from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania: scholars, historians, and those who work on this topic in the same way we do—making films, books, and collecting memoirs."
This year marks 25 years since we began recording these stories. We have collected around 900 interviews with people deported in 1941. We published books and made films. Then we continued recording those deported in 1949. And then we began interviewing those born in Siberia after the deportation.
Last year, a book was published: 207 interviews with people born in Magadan, in the Tomsk region, in the far North.
180 calls in three days
— Over the years, you've probably already interviewed almost everyone you could find?
— It might seem that way. But it all began very modestly. In 2000, I had the idea to make a film, "Children of Siberia," about the fates of children deported to Siberia in June 41. We wrote in the newspaper that we were looking for such people. And within three days, 180 people called us. They were looking for an opportunity to meet with us and tell their stories.
That same year, in the summer, we went to Krasnoyarsk and the Krasnoyarsk region. In 2001, we went to Tomsk and the Tomsk region, to Kargasok.
There was a huge response after that. People in Latvia wanted to see a new film every year. We filmed various portraits: those who returned, those who remained in Siberia and would never return.
Then came "Diaries from Siberia." It's a "talking book," a two-volume collection of memoirs from people deported in 1941. It weighs eight and a half kilograms and contains 760 interviews. And we made a film to go with it—about four and a half hours long. You open the book, see a person's photograph, and hear their voice.
Every story is unique
— Did any stories become more important, more poignant, for you? Most of the stories are very similar: night, the doorbell, half an hour to get ready, a freight car, Siberia, cold, hunger…
"All the interviews are similar in some ways, but at the same time very different. It's a vast universe of human destinies, where each story is unique, and all of them are simultaneously tragic. But, for example, the deportation of 1941 was different from 1949, when entire families were deported, and family members supported each other. In 1941, families were separated, men were sent to camps, and women and children found themselves in exile alone. We're currently editing a film about Latvian women in Siberia and the children they born there. These are very unusual destinies; in exile, families often involuntarily became international. One of our heroines, for example, has a Chinese father," says Dzintra.
Her boyfriend
The film's heroine is Silvia Norvayshi. She was born on February 14, 1950, in Krasnoyarsk Krai. Her family story begins with the deportation of June 14, 1941. That night, soldiers burst into the home of her mother, Velta Adama. The two young daughters, aged four and two, were awakened by the knocking and screaming. The mother was ordered to pack quickly. In her haste, she threw random items into sacks: one missing shoe, some lard, and bread.
In Siberia, the deportees were placed with Russian families. They gradually exchanged everything they could take from home for food: gold rings, spoons, small items. But hunger still haunted them, and they gathered grass to make "soup." Shoes were scarce: in the winter, two children shared one pair of felt boots, and they took turns going outside.
For a long time, Velta knew nothing about her husband's fate. Only in 1943 was she informed that he had died, presumably while harvesting peat in the Pskov region.
During her Siberian exile, Velta met a Chinese opera singer, Sylvia's future father. The young man ended up in Russia during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). He was captured by the Japanese and, along with two comrades, decided to flee to the USSR, which was then considered a friend of China. The three men swam across the wide Amur River, with Sylvia's father in the middle because he couldn't swim. On the other side, they were met by Soviet border guards and immediately sent to prison. That's how he ended up in Siberia.
He met Velta at a logging camp. The Chinese man didn't speak Russian, but he was a good helper: he fetched water and chopped firewood. The other women ignored him, so Velta jokingly said he would be "her boyfriend." And so it happened. For Velta herself, this union was a difficult decision: she knew a Chinese husband would never be accepted as one of her own in her homeland. Then he suggested she move to Achinsk, where he found work and built a small house with his own hands, where Sylvia was born.
She once visited China with her father. Her mother remained in Siberia with her older daughters. Sylvia recalls a Chinese village near Beijing, her grandmother with her little bound feet, the red shoes her father bought her at the local market, and delicious white bread, each slice wrapped in crisp paper with Chinese characters. Her relatives wanted her father and daughter to remain in China, but Sylvia missed her mother, so they returned to Siberia. Life there was hard, but her father taught her that any hardship could be overcome with hard work.
"Dad worked a lot," Sylvia recalls. "I remember planting potato peelings with a piece of potato in them because there weren't many. Dad would dig a small hole, and my job was to put the peelings in, and then Mom would add a little fertilizer before Dad would fill the hole back in.
I lived in Siberia for 17 years and finished 9th grade. Then my mother retired, and we left. My older sister, Inara, kept calling from Latvia, saying that our grandparents were both sick and that we needed to take care of them. My mother didn't want to leave Siberia. She had a great job at a teacher training college. One time, she even won the grand prize for the largest pumpkin she grew for some competition.
And yet, Mom returned to her homeland. She and Dad separated. He had Chinese citizenship and was not allowed to settle in Latvia.
"Generals"
- Dzintra, recently in interview You told Latvian television a story about a camp guard's notes, accidentally found in 1991, practically hidden in a bottle. What was that story?
"It was indeed the diary of a guard named Sidorov, kept in 1941. The diary was published half a century later in the journal of the Norilsk branch of Memorial. This story is connected with the deportation from Latvia. In May of that year, a group of officers from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania were invited to Moscow, supposedly for a meeting. But it was a hoax. They were arrested and sent to Taimyr, to a camp near Lake Lama."
Almost all of them died there. Perhaps five or ten people survived. We learned about this from Ivan Sidorov's diary. He kept a very emotional journal. He wrote about how these soldiers were brought in in their uniforms, with their medals, and how they dug the earth like that.
"One day, two boats, the Sokol and the Norilets, approached the holiday home on Lama, tied together. We stood on the shore and gazed at this unusual vessel. Guard Chupin steered us fifty meters away from the gangway, down which 41 elderly soldiers were struggling to descend. Foreman Astakhov and prisoner Karabanov (he was trusted more than anyone else) helped the new arrivals descend the gangway and carry their suitcases.
On the shore, they lined up in a strict formation, suitcases and good leather briefcases at their feet. Each carried quite a few belongings. Four generals, then colonels, lieutenant colonels, and two majors brought up the rear. These were soldiers from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
They were magnificently dressed. They wore English wool uniforms with insignia, tightly cinched belts, and boots polished to a shine. The Baltic officers silently awaited orders. It was pleasant to watch them, but also a little terrifying.
Soon we all began calling this group of Balts by one word: generals. We would say, "Go to the generals' tent and give orders: tomorrow, go to work in the bakery or the kitchen."
It was clear the Balts had spiritually resigned themselves to their fate or were quietly consulting with a religious figure. It was Yomert—tall, strong, and taciturn. I never saw him smile. Everyone bowed respectfully to him. Every day at the same time, he went to the lake and stood for a long time on the shore. He was chosen as the eldest, although he was not the oldest.
One cold night in 1942, Yomert died. The entire camp attended his burial—even the sick and weak came. His grave was dug deeper than the others' in the "Haskin settlement" (as we called the cemetery at Lama). When summer came, Yomert's friends dragged a heavy, square stone block to his grave, seemingly hewn by nature itself. The other graves were marked with a simple peg with a plaque bearing his name…" Ivan Sidorov. "That was at Lama"
- Dzintra, have you visited the site of this camp?
"Yes, of course. But the first major international expedition had been there before us: over a hundred people from three countries went. They built a memorial cemetery on the banks of the Lama: crosses, stones."
They were captured by permafrost
— The last time you were in Siberia was before the war?
— In 2019. We were on our way to Norilsk. And they wrote to me from there: you shouldn't come here, you're enemies of our state, you're slandering Russia, don't come. They didn't even want to let us into the museum in Norilsk. They said the museum was closed, even though we'd announced our arrival in advance.
But we still went there and to Lake Lama, where the camp was. Everything there was already overgrown. We were told there would be reconstruction. But in Russia, they always say that and then do nothing.
People used to treat us differently. In 2010, we had warm relationships with the local cultural department staff. These women were very helpful. But in 2019, everyone became cold, as if they'd been frozen solid.
You anticipated my question. I remember your visit to Tomsk, when TV2 was filming a documentary about you making your own. No one even thought of saying you were "slinging mud at great Russia." But just a few years later, Memorial was declared "extremists," and monuments to Stalin and Dzerzhinsky appeared in various cities. Now, in Tomsk, a memorial square with stones of sorrow has been destroyed. How did Russia end up like this? Perhaps an outsider would have a better idea?
I don't know the answer, I can only share my subjective impressions. I first visited Siberia in the mid-1960s. I was 16. My father had been released from a political prison camp, but he wasn't allowed to return to Latvia. He sent a telegram from Omsk. I flew there to meet him. What I saw horrified me. Latvia was also occupied, but the difference from Siberia was still enormous.
I have always been amazed at how the Russian people can submit and put up with constant violence.
In one of my films, former political prisoner Gunārs recalled his time in Vladimir Prison. He was often sent to solitary confinement because he asked "unpleasant" questions during political briefings. One day, he asked a political officer, "If Nazi Germany had won the war, would the Russian people have submitted or resisted?" The political officer replied, "Of course, we wouldn't have submitted; we would have resisted." And Gunārs replied, "You see, we resisted too. We didn't want you to occupy us either." After that, he was sent back to solitary confinement.
This is how Russia has always treated and continues to treat those who do not remain silent.
The day after tomorrow has arrived
— Unlike in Russia, where even memorial stones are declared "undesirable objects," is preserving the memory of the repressions still relevant for residents of the Baltics?
We've also had different periods. When we started traveling and collecting materials in 2000, some of our filmmaking colleagues said, "That time has passed. It's already history. Why stir it up?" I'd jokingly reply, "Maybe it's not needed today, maybe not tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow it'll be urgently needed?"
And this "day after tomorrow" arrived when Russia attacked Ukraine. Putin decided to restore the Soviet Union, Stalin's monuments. Now Dzerzhinsky is being returned to Lubyanka. And just like under Stalin, children are being taken out of Ukraine. So the topic of deportation is back.
