Commemorative candle. The Taimyr Region during the years of political repressions. Memoirs
Maria Rudolfovna Gerenberg and Leopold Klementevich Schalelis
My grandmother, Maria Rudolfovna Gerenberg, was a German. My grandfather Leopold Klementevich Schalelis – came from Latvia. The two of them met eachother in Dudinka and got married in 1948. Maria arrived in the place of exile later than my father Rudolf Gerenberg, who had been arrested in Tashkent in 1937 for having participated in a revolt. He was deported and exiled to Norilsk. Ten years later, in 1947, he was transferred to Dudinka. For reasons of his nationality, Maria did not have the possibility to change her family name. Children were born: Tamara, Zhenia and Victor Schalelis. Tamara and Victor later left for Latvia together with their parents, while Zhenia stayed in Dudinka. Grandmother Maria worked for the typographic institute in Dudinka.
Grandfather Leopold Klementevich Schalelis was born in Latvia in 1920. In 1936 the sixteen year old boy crossed the Latvian / CCCR border, after having repeatedly listened to propaganda campaigns promising a „bright future“. He betook himself to the NKVD. However, having heard why he had come to the country, he was immediately declared an English spy, sentenced to a seven years’ camp detention and sent to the Norillag. In 1943, however, when he had served his sentence, the authorities did not release him, but kept him in the very same place until 1946 – without any official order of the court. He did his time in the Dudinka sub-camp section in accordance with § 58 for having commiteed espionage. After his final release he worked for the port authorities in Dudinka – namely as a painter for the „Port building“ authority.
AS from1968 until 1971 he worked for the construction and assembling authority N° 3, which was in charge of the installation of a gas pipe from Messoyakha to Dudinka and further to Norilsk. In 1975 he left for Latvia, for the town of Sigulda. Certificates on the rehabilitation of the family he had already received after gis grandfather’s death.
(From the memoirs of Maria Schalelis’ granddaughter, 2006)
Rudolf Gerenberg’s family. Dudinka 1954-1955
First row: Rudolf and Anastasia Gerenberg (middle) as a married couple,
upper row – their children: Leonid and his wife Maria, Tamara, Yewgeniy
Taimyr Regional Museum of Local Lore
Fund for cultural initiatives
(Mikhail-Prokhorov-Foundation)