Ingermanland, Izhora in Russian, they traditionally call the territory between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland, which had been settled by the Ingrians (Izhorians) centuries ago. Already early in the 20th century most of this people was absorbed by Finns, whose origin and language is similar to theirs, and today the Ingrians are considered to have become extinct.
The deportation from Ingermanland for reasons of national indication, also known as "deportation of the blockaders", was carried out in late March of 1942. The displacement from the town of Leningrad and its suburbs that had remained under the control of the Soviet army affected all Ingermanland Finns and Germans. There is information that local residents of Polish or Estonian? extraction were also hit by this deportation, however, we do not know of any precise knowledge on this. Maybe that explains itself by the fact that Poles and Estonians were mainly townspeople, but almost no exiles from Leningrad happened to get to our region.
The deportees were transported to the banks of Lake Ladoga, crowded together on trucks and taken across the frozen lake to the opposite side. It occasionally happened that trucks broke through the ice, particularly when they approached the east banks. Some exiles succeeded in jumping from the trucks; others did not. On the east banks (to be more precise -on the south-east banks), in Tikhvin, Zhikharevo or Kobona (there was a narrow-gauge railway), the deportees were loaded on trains. Some were transported away by trucks all the way up to Vologda.
According to the data available to us, Finns and Germans were taken away in separate transports. The Finns from Leningrad and Koltushya ended up in exile in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk, while the exiles from Pargolovo, with its predominantly Finnish population, were forced into all directions throughout the region: to the settlement of Kichibash on the Sisim River, the Daurian district, Khakassia, the Nizhneingash district, as well as the districts around Achinsk and on the Yenissey River, north of Krasnoyarsk.
The Ingermanland Germans, who mainly used to live in the southeastern parts of the town, were also scattered into different directions. Those who had been unloaded from the train in Achinsk were taken to the Birilyussy district, and of those who had been forced to leave the trains in Kansk, some ended up in the Kansk woodworking factory, others in districts north of Kansk up to the Angara River, some to the district of Nizhneingash. One of the transports was directed to Omsk; however, they refused to take the exiles there, so that the train headed further for Krasnoyarsk.
In the summer of 1942 many Germans and Finns were deported to the north, for "fishing" to the district of Turukhansk, Dudinka and further to the north, to Karaul and Ust'-Port, some even to Khatanga in the eastern part of the Taymyr peninsula. From then the situation of exiled Ingermanland Germans did not differ from the fate of other exiled Germans (s. section 6.2).
At the NKVD they did not issue and keep and "personal files" on Finns. Besides, the exiled Finnish farmers (s. section 4.6) were released in 1947, without transferring them into another "category of exiles", unlike the ethnic Germans.
They started releasing the Ingermanland Finns from exile in the very beginning of the 1950s. Upon their release they were handed passports. Their release was completely finished in 1954.
The Finns trying to return home encountered considerable problems. Even in the second half of the 1950s many Finns, who had returned home to their villages, were chased by militiamen. For that reason the Finns were forced to settle in Estonia, where the native population showed kindness and understanding for them.
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