They come here, to this village, every year – a village that was originally
founded by force and later became abandoned, a village into which they once
deported their parents, where their own childhood happened.
How quickly became towns and villages overgrown by the rampant, almost jungle-looking taiga, after the people left this place?! Maybe, due to the economic crises or because they were hit by unemployment? Or just to be on the safe side – in case the dam at the nearby hydro-electric power station should break and wash away their homes, the entire town?
Or to be in a safe place, in case of an accident with the nuclear reactor? Whether or not the dandelion would grow, fast as the wind, through the cobblestones and the sand cover quickly all those grounds, where they used to parade every now and then? The word for this is not „quickly“! It is, in fact, „rapid“.
Of course, you will find subtle nuances. The Krasnoyarsk Territory – this is not the tropics! And right here, in the Kosylsk District, the trees are not growing that close to eachother; but then, finally, you reach the abandoned Stolypin track, alongside which about a century before were built those villages, which later, under Khrushchev’s rule began to disappear by and by.
You are pacing through this wide area that was once created by man, and you are yet able to make out the former position of houses and the course of roads and lanes. Two benches and a table under some roofing have been preserved, as well; common sense will tell you that there was a well in this place in former times. A little further to the north, however, in the districts oaf Yeniseisk and Turukhansk, the taiga licked up like a tongue all marks of human activity of those years; nothing has remained there, it is impossible to drive through, and even if you try to reach this area on foot, you will hardly succeed to blaze a trail.
Kromka – this was the name of the little village in the Irbei District. It ceased to exist; the only relicts that remained there are a couple of detached grey poles in the iniform-looking desert, which extends over an area of many, many miles. An alder-buckthorne is waving to you from one of the former front gardens. The area is abundantly covered with stinging nettles distinctly indicating the corners of former little wooden cottages which disapperaed long ago. Currant bushes are growing in the old fruit orchards. The distance between the deadly silent, extinct settlement of Kromka and the city of Krasnoyarsk with ist vivid life amounts to 187 versts towards the east. If it did not rain, there would be no problem to get there. Asphalt, then gravel and crushed stones, and the last 7 kms you can cleave on foot through the thicket of trees, bushes, grass and fields.
I mad a trip to Kromko accompanied by the chairman of the Krasnoyarsk „memorial“ Organization – Aleksei Babiy.
... There is an icon showing the apparition of the Holy Ghost in front of the apostles: the twelve apostles are sitting in a close semi-circle around a portal / an arc / a passage. I had this icon in mind, when I saw the former inhabitants of the abandonned village sitting down on the high grass, under the vault of heaven – on order to commemorate and see eachother again. These people come to this place once a year, and they have been practicing this habit for many years already. They return to the ruins and remains of their home village – from Irbei, Kansk, Krasnoyarsk, Achinsk, Sosnovoborsk, Lesosibirsk, Ust-Kut, Novosibirsk, Surgut.
At an earlier time, when tickets were cheaper, some even arrived from Moscow, the European parts of Russia and the Ukraine. The faces of these old people show the same steadfast, expectant expression and, at the same time, a certain gladness and happiness about their meeting, as reflect the faces of the apostles.
A few steps from a birchtree I reduce speed; I notice about a dozen cars slowly approaching.
In Kromka there are two „portals“ in all. They are long, narrow tables made
of planks.
Benches were arranged to both long sides, just simple planks mounted on
carved-in poles –
within spitting distance to the village cemetery. About 100 people have gathered
here (in early years they were more in number). The dressed up former
inhabitants of Kromka, accompanied by their grandchildren and
grand-grandchildren, at first visit the graves of the fathers and mothers,
graves which are since long overgrown by wild strawberries. The visitors
saunter, look about over the abandonned area, letting their minds wander. They
recall their former little home village. Afterwards, they sit down closely on
the benches, shoulder to shoulder.
Before Stalin’s repressions there had been some namelss single farmstead in this place, which had first been occupied by only one family, later by two. Between 1936 and 1939 people were deported to this place by force.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Permyakov, who was working in Kromka as a teacher at that time and temporarily helped with the data collection regarding the 1959 population census, tells us:
- According to the results of this census, 565 people lived in our village; 15 nationalities: Ukrainians, Germans, Poles, Belorussians, Russians, Buryats... And there were 155 farmsteads.
The fact that the village of Kromka acted as a model which reflected the Soviet power can nowadays still be recognized from the faces of the living – who were then children. They are all entirely different people, just like the crosses on the cemetery which suggest orthodox, Polish, Lithuanian origins. Not a single inhabitant of the village of Kromka ever removed to this place on his own free will. They were all special resettlers who came there by force. And they were not taken to Kromka directly but crabwise. The repressed were usually assigned to work for the timber industry first, and only later those, who, due to their bad state of health were no more able to fell trees, were deported to this village, in order to have them fulfil less exhausting jobs in agriculture.
Oh well! In the end they proceeded according to the following scheme: as soon as the forced resettlers had managed to to orient themselves in their new place of residence and provisionally reorganize the mostly needed household and personal effects, they were once again torn away from their familiar surroundings and taken to another unknown place. In Kromkoa some commandant personified the Soviet power. Later he left the village for some reason or other but returned in May 1949. At that time they had just taken 30 Lithuanian families to Kromka. The village disposed of a basic primary school which was attended by all children. As of 1955 Permyakov was teaching lessons at this school for a period of seven years altogether.
Nelli Filippova treats me to the meal she prepared. She tells me that the appearance and behaviour of the male participants of this meeting astonishes her most. They do not show the slightest sentimentality, no – quite the contrary: they are very open-minded and talkative, thus giving an entirely different impression – other than ususal. It feels as if they are surrounding by some chilly wind from above, which even makes their facial expression change.
She introduces her hgusband Vladimir Filippovich and his sister Yevdokia to us. Her father Filipp Filippovich Filippov, born in 1900, was buried in this place. Their lineage is from Buryatia; in 1931 they were expropriated and deported to the Turukhansk District, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Later, they were taken to Kromko by barge, down the river Yenisey, for eternal settling. Vladimir Filippovich was born here, he is now 70 years old. His father dies in 1938. His mother had so much liked to return to her home in the Baikal region. They strove towards a permission to leave, they were waiting for this special permit, for they were not allowed to live in any district they liked (due to the adjacent Mongolian Republic). They received the pernmission to remove only in 1953, after Stalin’s death, when the special regime in this zone was liquidated. Later-on, the kolkhoz farmers were issued identity cards (so-called passports), and the villagers of Kromka left the place one by one.
The Filippows returned home; on the kolkhoz farm they even discovered their horses – the horses which had been confiscated on the occasion of the overall dekulakization were still in use. And thefamiliar five-wall house of the Filippovs had quartered the office of the village soviet for more than 70 years. Later-on, under Yeltsin’s rule, there was a court hearing; but even then the Filippovs were not entitled to get their house back, for ist rooms were used by children of a kindergarten at that time. They were paid compensation instead – 7.500 rubels. The amount equated to the value of two unhewn tree trunks.
-The were all exiles, they were all dreaming of returning home one day; we, the children, remained without being asked. But for us Kromka was our home village. This is the place where we were born, here are all our friends, and you know the place like the back of your hand; we used tp play over there, on the hill, the clearing, - says Vladimir Filippovich, pointing at the abandonned area with an amiable smile on his face. – Later I took professional training courses in Ulan-Ude, but I have always been attracted by this place, the place where I feel comfortable; having finished the institute I was assigned a job in this area. Now I live in Sosnovoborsk (one of the satellite towns of Krasnoyarsk. – A.T.). And I am dreaming of Kromka every night – I can see myself walking along the road which, in reality, does not exist anymore.
I become acquainted with Anna Pavlovna Kiselman, who is lonely and forelornly
standing in front of her family grave. She was born in 1933. Her family,
Germans, were deproted from the Briansk region in 1941. Her maidenname is Lajker
(Leiker? Laiker?). She left Kromka in 1967 to tremove to the district town of
Irbei. All her life she has been working as a milkmaid;
She brought up three children, who now all live in Irba: they are farmers,
confectioners and book-keepers by profession.
Makrina Filippovna Kondratyuk is 86 years old – the eldest inhabitant of
Kromka. She left the village in 1979 as one of the last. Her son from
Krasnoyarsk drove her to Kromka, thus enabling her to attend the meeting. He
tells us: - Mum is from the Ukraine; her parents were dispossessed and
afterwards deported to this area. They died right in the taiga from typhoid
fever, as did all our relatives. Mum stayed behind all alone, but then decided
to leave the thicket of the taiga and remove to Kromka, where she lived with
people she did not know.
In Kromka she tied the knot. She had to let her husband go to the front where he
was killed. Later she married once again. - Listening to her son’s report,
Makrina Filippovna nods in agreement and a smile shows on her face.
Galina Nikolaevna Permyakova:
Mum was born in 1900; she was deported from the Baikal region in 1931. She had been working there like a slave – and she was to meet the same fate here. Nevertheless, she never railed against the Soviet power. We were eight children, two died very early. Dad died in 1956; Mum managed to raise her family all alone, all children received a good school education and completed their degree with an institute. I wonder whether nowadays a simple woman from the countryside would be able to bring up six children and furthermore manage to give them a tertiary education?! – During the commemorative banquet Nikolai Permyakov, Galina’s brother, addresses himself to his compatriots. He touches on the subject that Kromka was condemned by history to die out and become a ghost village: none of ist residents came here on their own free will, they were all taken to this place by force. However, he also expresses all his pride and joy about the fact that more children from Kromka attended the school in Verkhniaia Urya than from the neighbouring village of Yelezevka, although the latter is situated 7 kms nearer to the school. The chairman of the Krasnoyarsk „Memorial“ Organization, Aleksei Babiy, points out that the history of our country is reflected in the fate of the village of Kromka, just like in a water drop – dekhulakization, repressions, the war, the building boom under Khrushchev. But now, in this very moment, he simply counts himself lucky and feels comfortable to sit at this table with all these people.
The meal in commemoration of the former home village astounds everybody because of ist dignified atmosphere. The people just take a view bites, they drink little, they talk to eachother in a reasonable and considerate manner. They recall their youth, exchange the news of the past year. The collect money for the acquisition of some new tables and benches – those they are presently using will soon be completely decayed. They tell us that they drew a map of Kromka showing all the houses and huts of ist former residents, so that you can see who lived in which part of the village.
Our memory stores as many gigabites as needed.
Somebody’s ballpen rolls from the table down to the grass again and again – which is probably due to the rough ground. But there is nothing below – the place is all empty.
And if this is the way it is, then the former inhabitants of Kromka return to a deserted place once every year, sit down shoulder to shoulder on benches, pressing on the terrestral globe with all their weight – thus moving it somewhat from the spot.
Our co-correspondent in the Krasnoyarsk Territory
Novaia gazeta (New Newspaper)
10.08.2008