In March 1930 the Communists deported from the settlement (?) of PAVLOGRAD (PODTSVES), SYATKOVA RETSHKA village Soviet, KHABAROVSK district, SIBERIAN region (today ALTAY region) the Ukrainian family DENISSENKO (farmers):
When the family was "officially" sent into exile and all the corresponding documents were filled out, the officials on duty simply raised the childrens' age by 3-4 years.
They were sent to KRASNOYARSK and then, in the summer, were taken to YENISSEYSK on a barge. They were kept there in exile for approximately one year, and then, in the following summer, transported away again, further downstream the river Yenissey; not far from YARTSEVO they were marooned at the riverbanks, at a completely blank space.
And here they built up the exile settlement of TAMAROVO, on the left banks of the Yenissey, 15 km upstream from NIZHNESHADRINO. There I. (Y.) DENISSENKO perished. In 1935 G. (I.) DENISSENKO ran away from exile and went to Krasnoyarsk.
In 1936 the DENISSENKO family was removed to NIKULINO, on the left banks of the Yenissey, downstream from Yartsevo and Krivlyak. The exiles had to work for the timber industry (fell trees and raft timber).
In NIKULINO perished S. (Y.) DENISSENKO (who attended the school there).
Around 1940 they started sending exiles (among them girls) to NORILSK for driving lessons.
K. (I.) DENISSENKO also went there.
In NIZHNESHADRINO, at the mouth of the river Kas, there lived a Russian farmer's family in exile, which had been deported from BELSK (BOLSHAYA BELAYA), POROVSK district, in the summer of 1930:
L. (A.) ALEXANDROV was sent away from the timber industry to NIKULINO.
In 1939 he married Y. (I.) DENISSENKO. The marriage was registered by the special commandant's office. In 1940 they moved to NIZHNESHADRINO, and in 1941 they were transferred to the settlement of SHERTSHANKA (SERTSHANKA), which was situated a little further upstream the river Kas. Not far from the settlement, in the taiga, there was an old camp cemetery: sticks (pickets) with little name tags, but the epitaphs were almost completely blurred. Once they found a little icon on the stump of a tree, which had already grown into the wood.
In the same settlement, however in separate barracks, lived people, who had been exiled for political reasons. There were many of them, several dozens, both young and old people, among them a few Caucasians. Among the political exiles there was quite a number of educated and cultured town people, one of them an aged man, who's surname was ZAYCHIK.
These exiles, too, had to work for the timber industry. Early in the 1940s (yet before the war) there were all taken away to some unknown place.
In the autumn of 1941 lots of Lithuanian deportees arrived in NIZHNESHADRINO. Most of them were sent upstream the river Kas, upstream from SHERTSHANKA (probably to Noviy Gorodok, to a place, where they built rafts from logs for the reafting of timber - and there were many such places along the river Kas). In SHERTSHANKA there were no Lithuanians.
In 1942 they released L. (A.) Alexandrov from exile and sent him to the front. He perished in East-Prussia.
As of 1943 Y. (I.) DENISSENKO (ALEXANDROVA) worked as a postwoman in NIZHNE-SHADRINO. At this time a physician arrived, who had been sent there into exile after his release from the NORILLAG. He was Alexander Alexandrovich Bayev (born ~1892), who had been arrested in Moscow. He worked in the hospital.
In 1945 he was removed to Moscow by call.
During the war a colonel (tankman) was exiled to NIZHNESHADRINO, as well - Sergey Ivanovich Arefyev. Later he was rehabilitated and released and received 40 thousand rubels - as recompensation of the unpaid salary, which he missed after his arrest, during the whole period of detention.
Later arrived the veterinarian BIRYUKOV, who had also been sent there into exile after having served his sentence in the camp. He worked in the kolkhoz as a veterinarian. And then he was transferred to FOMKA (see below).
In the middle of the 1940s the well-known surgeon Mikhail Vassilyevich RUMYANTSEV from Leningrad worked in the YARTSEVO district hospital. Having served his sentence in the NorilLag he had also been sent away into exile. In the middle of the 1950s he was released and returned to Leningrad.
The exiles ("kulaks"), who lived in the district of YARTSEVO at that time, were released after the war and received passports. The parents of L. (A.) ALEXANDOV stayed to live in NIZHNESHADRINO. Y. (I.) ALEXANDROVA (DENISSENKO) also received a passport. Afterwards she was transferred to the post-office in FOMKA, also situated on the left banks of the Yenissey, downstream from the mouth of the river Kas, where there was a separate sovkhoz called Molokova. This was also a pure settlement for exiles. There were many exiled Latvians, who had been chased away from Latvia in 1941. It was Alisa FRITSKAUS (born ~1900), who delivered the mail to FOMKA. She had got into exile all alone, without her children. YAN EMPELS (born ~1920) worked in the sovkhoz. IN FOMKA also lived the exiles Maria KALTYNEKS and her son Vladimir. After their release from exile in the second half of the 1950s they all went back to their native places.
Gavriil Ivanovich STROSHITSKIY (born ~1890), a diplomate (NKVD man) also lived in FOMKA. He had been sent into exile after having served his sentence in the camp and now worked there as a care-taker.
Earlier, in the 1930s, there was another camp around 7 km downstream from FOMKA. People said that during the summer the prisoners were "exposed to the mosquitoes" and that in the winter; upon severe frost, they had to stand outside and water was poured on them.
A. (Y.) ALEXANDROV was rehabilitated by the Information Center of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Administration of the Interior on the 12.03.1997.
I. (Y.) DENISSENKO, Y. (M.) DENISSENKO and their daughter Y. (I.) DENISSENKO were rehabilitated by the Information Center of the Altay Regional Administration of the Interior on the 09.06.1997.
09.06.1999, recorded by V.S. Birger, Krasnoyarsk, "Memorial" Society
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