Yesterday people in Norilsk commemorated innocent prisoners of the GULAG.
On the 30th of October, the Day of Commemoration in honor of the victims of political repressions, the citizens of Norilsk gathered, by tradition to bow to the ashes of those, who found their eternal rest at the foot of the silent Schmidtikha Mountain. Since 1942 people, who lost their life in the Norillag have remained here for “eternal peace”. Early in the 1990s first memorial places appeared at the places of sorrow, where, at this time, any remainders of earlier burial sites had already been razed to the ground – a chapel, crosses, other signs of commemoration… Today people from all over the world come to visit the „Norilsk Golgotha” Memorial Place. It is a matter of fact that hundreds of thousands of people from 23 countries were suffering in Norilsk camps. And it was them who appeared to be the first builders of the combine and the town itself . It is a matter of our conscience not to bury their fates in oblivion…
Among those standing shoulder to shoulder in the snow storm during this
year’s memorial meeting, there were people, who recalled how sixty years before
the prisoner revolt began in the Gorlag. Olga Ivanovna Yaskina is a former
political prisoner who lives in our town. A participant of the rebellion, 88
year-old human rights activist Lev Aleksandrovich Netto arrived from Moscow by
plane. On the eve he had taken part in the museum meetings held in commemoration
of the 60th anniversary of the revolt in Talnakh and Norilsk together with the
journalist and researcher of the history of the Norilsk revolt - Alla Borisovna
Makarova.
At the „Norilsk Golgotha“ several generations of residents of the North prayed for the deceased souls of the victims of the Norillag. Many pupils had come to this place for the first time, and one could clearly notice that the children were filled with a particular feeling of sympathy towards the truth of history. A small group of women from the capital of the Taimyr peninsula – all from families of exiled Germans, Kalmucks and Belorussians – bowed to the victims in the name of the inhabitants of Dudinka; through this town hundreds of prisoner transports had got to the Norillag.
In the past years the people, after leaving the Memorial Place on the foot of Mount Schmidtikha, used to walk to the Museum of the history of the Norilsk Industrial Area, where, after many years of waiting, a memorial stone was finally erected for the victims of the Norillag. Aged inhabitants of Norilsk, whose life was directly affected by repressions, were once again standing in this modest place of memory holding hands. In the same manner the participants of the tragic „revolt of the soul“ in the Gorlag had hold hands in 1953. When remembrance touches such incidents just for a short moment, there is no need to utter any superfluous words on the subject, for they would appear to be unsubstantial and entirely inept, anyway.… Nikolai Aleksandrovich Formosov, Moscovitan researcher of the history of resistance in the GULAG, who arrived from the capital in order to also commemorate the participants of the Norilsk revolt, took off his hat, while snow was coming down as if giving solace and sad in a low voice: „Let us remain in a minute’s silence; our hearts commemorate those, who were kept in Stalin’s camps and will always be near and dear to us….“. The people whispered the names of political prisoners, some of which meant a great deal to the people of Norilsk: Doctor Serafim Vasilevich Znamenskiy, master builder Vasiliy Feoktistovich Romashkin, the inventor and explorer Vilis Karlovich Traubergs… Many, a great many of People from Norilsk they were….. And, of course, we were also commemorating the well-known master Anna Vasilevna Danilyuk, who was exiled to the North from Ukraine. … Exactly on the 30th of October one year ago she passed away, and yet the hearts of all recall her and all the others with pleasure, - for these people had been so interesting, so meaningful and necessary to society. May we remember them forever and be grateful to them for having done so much good to our beloved Norilsk.
Photos: Yelena Khudanova
„Polar Truth“ 31.10.2013