A.A.Babiy,
the chairman of the regional public organization
«Krasnoyarsk historical - educational remedial and charitable organization "Memorial"
The Krasnoyarsk’s organization ”Memorial" was founded in 1988. There were 10 people in the "Memorial" in 2002. This organization specializes in three fundamental subjects.
First of all we collect the information about repressions. We interrogate subjected to repression and their relatives, reproduce all their photos, documents and memories. All these documents are kept in the “Memorial” archive. Most of them are scaned and placed in the site . We pay a lot of attention to this job, because the information we get from people is unique: it is impossible to get it researching archival documents. If you visit our site you can be astonished by the huge number of witness statements from victims of the political repressions.
Secondly, subjected to repression who are in need of rehabilitation are given a juridical assistance. Different demands are sent to various State establishments in order to find the necessary documents for rehabilitation. Also there are different appeals to the Court for the establishment of political repressions. As a rule, repressed themselves cannot take their bearings in statutory rights which are harshly infringed nowadays. We are here to explain the main points of the rehabilitation Law. During a year we meet with 200-300 of such applications, in majority of cases we succeed in standing upon their rights. In 2004 we created a new form of this job - consultation at the place. The group of two men: a lawyer of the organization “Memorial” and his assistant come to the regions of Krasnoyarsk to hold a consultation of subjected to repression. We have already done it in Eniseisk, Kaksk, Lesosibirsk.
The ‘Memorial’ conducts work in the archives of Krasnoyarsk region, organizes the expeditions, collects the materials from the families of subjected to repression. Afterwards the information is placed in the site (www.memorial.krsk.ru) , which makes easier to get this information for people interested in this subject.
The gathered materials are used for public education: an organization of exhibitions, lectures, and publications in press. There is a cd which was created specially for teachers of Krasnoyarsk region. It contains a copy of the site, systematic materials for teachers, copies of rare books about the history of political repressions. Between 2003-2004, 700 copies of this disk are spread all over Krasnoyarsk region.
There is a center of enlightenment, founded in 2002, by the cooperation of Cultural Historical Center and the house of science and technology. It is occupied with organization of exhibitions and lectures. There were exhibitions about repressions of Enisei river transport workers, reformatory camps, camping arts, repressed stolbists. Since 2003 we offer movable exhibitions about political repressions to schools of the region. Some of them are represented by international organization ‘Memorial’, others we elaborated in the cooperation with of Cultural Historical Center.
The center of enlightenment worked out and regularly conducts lectures, such as, “The Camps of Krasnoyarsk region”, “Creative intelligentsia and totalitarianism in 1920-1950” for pupils and for students. Also there is a reading-room which contains the unusual issues and articles about repressions, rights of a man and civil society.
The international organization “Memorial” organizes All-Russian competition “A man in the history. Russia 20 century’. It is very important competition. Pupils examining the history of their ancestors, their city or town absorb the information which protect them in this way against totalitarianism. The regional coordinator of the competition is the Krasnoyarsk’s organization “Memorial”. In 2002 6 works were published and only one was rewarded. In 2003, 5 works were in final, and 2 were rewarded.
The Krasnoyarsk organization “Memorial” carried out the range of expeditions (construction -503, Krasnoyarsk Camp, Nordvik, Kolima). In 2004 for the first time an expedition was organized by the Enisei Pedagogical secondary school. Students of the first course practiced their knowledge of history in Yarcevo, Niculino, Krivlyake. They visited the place where had situated first camps. All the information they have found is in our site.
The Krasnoyarsk’s organization "Memorial” restored lives of 47000 subjected to repression. This information can be found in our site.
The development of the project “Returned names” (www.vi.krsk.ru) has started in 2000. It includes the development of the United Bank with the list of political repressions’ victims on the territory of ex-USSR. Krasnoyarsk takes an active part in this project. The Krasnoyarsk’s organization “Memorial” is the regional coordinator on the territory of Siberia and Far East. In April of 2002 we held a regional seminar, where our partners from Siberia and Far East had been invited (on the main there had been editors and work groups on the compiling of Memory Book). There they were retrained about the program provider. Furthermore they discussed the systematical questions. This project was made with the help of The Department of Internal Affairs which provides the work with printing.
The Krasnoyarsk’s organization “Memorial” in common with Maxsoft makes a program provider of the project “Returned names”. In the internet we created a virtual conference with the authors of the memory book from all over Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The main problem, brought up at the conference connected with the immortalization of the memory of political repressions’ victims.
The first Memory book was issued in cooperation with the administration of Krasnoyarsk region. In 2004 was issued the first volume describing 6000 of Krasnoyarsk’s impeached citizens. There are still expected 9 volumes with the same type of information.
In 2001 we placed a mortgage stone of memory of political repressions’ victims in the place called Strelka near Cultural Historical Centre.