Last Saturday a memorial was inaugurated in the village of Polevoe; it was
erected in commemoration of the victims of political repressions, who were
buried in a mass grave exactly in this place. And until now, it is the only
common grave within our district, where people put up a memorial cross, although
we know from statements of the relatives of deceased and from various documents
that there were a number of other mass graves yet.
Today, 72 years have passed since the formation of the special resettler’s villages of Polevoe, Bokovoe, Abolsk and Sopka in the Birilyussy District!
The very first involuntary inhabitants were dispossessed and disenfranchised big farmers (kulaks), who were deported from the Kuban Region, Ukraine, Belorussia and the central areas of Russia in March 1933. As we are aware, the Soviets took the peasants to Siberia by train, whereby they were confiscated their entire property. All of them , including little children and old people, were condemned to harm and great misery and, in many cases, even to death. During the first year of their resettlement hundreds of these people, who had been defamed and rifled by the state, were killed – they died from hunger, diseases and the rough climate, after having exchanged all their belongings with the village farmers against foodstuffs. Departed aduklts were buried in their clothes, children were wrapped by birchbark….
Under such circumstances yet, these people, who had been deprived of their political rights, who were considered to be socially dangerous elements, but who disposed of great skill, showed real courage and a heroic attitude to work: they managed to find themselves shelter in self-built dug-outs, little by little acquired objects to equip their household with; they created agricultural production cooperatives, organized schools and medical units. However, at that time, it was “not indicated” to talk about their credits, and nothing was written about them in the newspapers, either!
At the beginning of the war schools were run in the villages, in Polevoe they
even opened a
10-term school, there was a district hospital with ambulatory, inpatient
healthcare and surgical ward, where doctors from among the exiles were
practicing medicine. Artists of the „Fortress Theater“regularly performed plays
and organized concerts of amateur orchestras. The agricultural production
cooperatives, which were not bound to any specific statutes brought in
remarkable revenues for the district exchequer.
The beginning war, however, implicated a number of corrections with regard to
the life of the resettlers. All men fit for work were mobilized into the labour
army. Already in May 1932, they had started to call up all dispossessed kulaks
to the labour front.
Michei Alekseevich Slabukho, for example, a big farmer from the village of Pokrovka, Satchulymsk village soviet, had to send two sons to the front: later he received a notification on the death of one of them – he was killed during the defensive battle near Stalingrad. The second son, who had been “deprived the right for any access to universities of the USSR” and excepted from Tomsk University for being the son of a kulak, returned from war as a lieutenant, who had meanwhile been awarded two decorations. He had taken part in the defense of Elnia, Staraia Russa and Moscow. Today, he is the last officer from the Great Patriotic War in the Birilyussy District who is still alive.
The son of the disposessed kulak Pavel Andreevich Ispolinov became a tank driver; he died heroic death on his “Tiger” during a frontal attack.
The regional “Memorial” organization (chairman A.A. Babiy) and staff members of the district museum have to be credited with the initiative for the perpetuation of commemoration of the innocent victims of political repressions in our district. Apart from this, the front man of our district, V.I. Yakovlev (and thisby the way, was one of the requests of his voters), the head of the rural administration of Polevoe, V.S. Pospelov, and the protectionist of the local church, Father Sergiy, helped with the realization of this project – the erection of a cross, five meters in height, made from the timber of a Siberian yellow pine. The huge memorial cross was built by descendants of the Borovs, Pospelovs, Kuzmenkows and other villagers, who were once compulsorily resettled to this place.
Justice and a broad mind must triumph on this earth, only then the process of renaissance will get started. This is what the head of our district, V.I. Yakovlev, Father Sergiy and the director of the Museum of local lore, N.A. Laktionova, stressed out in their speeches in comemmoration of the victims of repression.
There are intentions to realize the erection of further memorial places on our territory.
V. Vasilev, village of Polevoe
„New Way“, N° 25 (3265), 22.06.2005