Children of former „enemies of the people“ lower wreathes to the waters of the Yenisey, people who lost their home places and their graves
Children of „enemies of the people“ at he banks of the Yenisey
People in Krasnoyarsk commemorate the victims of mass deportation, who were displaced from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to the Ural and Siberia. On the 14th of June 1941 the first trains were heading for the east, made up by waggons, which, in actual fact, were exclusively intended for the transportation of cattle. They carried away three peoples. Later parts of the deportees were reloaded on barges leaving for the north. Just before the river had completely frozen up, they were abandoned on the naked embankment – without any warm clothes, without axes, without fishing nets. And they were told that they would find their food right in the nearby waters. These people built themselves dugouts, in order to take shelter from wind, cold and water, by using moss as well as the wood of twisted birchtrees which were growing all around the place.
Seventy years later Letts, Lithuanians and Estonians have met again on one of those narrow boats to repeat a part of this voyage and, under the sound of the famous “Ave Maria”, lower a wreath to the waters of the Yenisey. They are carrying a big cross with a wooden framework, wrapped with the twigs of fir, pine and birch trees – and, exactly in the midle of it, twigs of an oak tree, the kind of trees which is not growing in this region. The decoration is competed by a few siberian yellow pine sprigs – the very tree which helped them to survive. Vera Nikolayeva, chairwoman of the Estonian „Eesti“ organization said a prayer in her mother-tongue. The Letts, headed by the deputy chairwoman of their national society Ausmoi Vantsane – she was ten years old when she was taken to Siberia by force – sang a few strophes of a folk song.
The month of June is a very special month – it is filled with lots of bitterness and – light. It is the month providing the most of daylight, but it also comprises many, many gigabites of human commemoration. Memoirs of the war, Stalin’s repressions, of all who perished in those times. Pentecost with all its commemoration is usually celebrated in June. In Siberia once a year, on Pentecost, former inhabitants of the villages which, after the construction of the hydro-electric powerplant, were flooded, arrange for a meeting. Children of special (forced) resettlers visit those remote, abandonded places again, where they spent their childhood and which became their home places. They keep staying for a while on the savaged cemetary, all overgrown by grass, wild strawberries and trees, lingering over the desolate ground, having a look at the currant bushes in former fruit ochards and vegetable gardens, stealing glances at the stinging nettles, which still give a hint to where the wooden huts were standing, huts that have disappeared since long, and watching the rosebay willow-herbs weighing in the wind, which are now covering the vastness of the area, once inhabited by people.
In the course of 23 years, in hard detailwork, Aleksei Babiy, chairman of the Krasnoyarsk „Memorial“ Organization, and his combatants have reconstructed the fate of hundreds of thousands of victims of repressions, whose lot is intimately connected with the region; they reasearched, put information on the internet and published names and memoirs of eye-witnesses in paper form. Information on victims, who were killed, who were resettled by force or exiled to this region. And this is just the beginning of their research work. Ausma Vantsane told me, how she and her mother were removed (with the second wave of deportation from the Baltic countries), to the village of Gorodishche in the Omsk Region in 1949, and the whole collective guilt of her family was based on the fact that her father was a border guard and her grandfather had served for the Latvian militia. Upon decision of a so-called “troika” her grandfather was sentenced to a 10 years imprisonment in the NorilLag and subsequent exile for another five years. Babiy succeeded in finding out the telephone number, had a look at website and discovered that the grandfather’s name – Adam Vantsans – was not mentioned in the existing card file.
Less than 3 million people live in the whole Krasnoyarsk Territory, a little bit less than 1 million in the city of Krasnoyarsk. One million – this is exactly the number mentioned by Babiy – equals the number of repressed people: people from Krasnoyarsk, from other regions and from other countries. Not less than 55.000 were arrested in the Krasnoyarsk Territory for political reasons. There were not less than 545.000 special (forced) resettlers and approximately 400.000 political prisoners. Such a concentration of grief and affliction in the course of so many decades – where else do we find such a phenomenon?
Merely every tenth victim is nowadays known to us by name.
Just one single witness report sent to “Memorial” – ordinary and without scare, given by Svetlana Fyodorovna Golovach:
- Mum’s first husband, Fyodor Rekis, had a job with the school as a housekeeper, apart from this he tought the children unterrichtete physical culture and preparation for vocational life. Mum, Vilma Tsaunite, born in 1913, graduated from the professional school of culinary art. She was very good in baking tarts. Once in 1941 men in military uniform approached the house and said: we give you two hours to pack your belongings, but just take along what is mostly needed. As this demand came all of a sudden, they were all nervous and concerned and took only very few things along. All men were to board one waggon, women, old people and children had to get on another one. They were first taken to Achinsk, from there to Birilyussy. Mum was pregnant at that time, she gave birth to the child in Birilyussy. The little one died. Mum then fell ill with typhoid fever, the course of disease was a severe one and it took a long time until she finally recovered. They were unable to speak Russia, but somehow managed to find a doctor. She paid him for the treatment by giving away her coat. The physician provided her with a bottle of schnapps and recommended to drink it by adding small pieces of butter. Later, Mum Vilma and her sister Irina were sent to the village of Goroshikha in the Turukhansk District. It was late in September. By the time they were abandoned in Goroshikha, the area was already covered by snow and there was no shelter at all.
When the fishermen arrived and began to feed their dogs with fish, they picked some small pieces up and ate them. They also looked for potatoe peels from garbage heaps, cooked and ate them, as well. By and by they learned a little Russian. In Goroshikha there were displaced Lithuanians, Estonians, Germans and Letts, and in the course of time the sister made friends with them. Life then became slightly easier.
Aleksei Tarasov
Correspondnt, Krasnoyarsk
„Novaya gazeta“, 19.06.2011