On the 9th of March 1988, in an appartment in Krasnoyarsk, a few people declared their intention to commemorate and make mention of all victims of the Communist regime by name. The newly founded organization was called "People's Fate". Within a few months the organization become part of the All-Russian MEMORIAL.
During the past ten years the Krasnoyarsk MEMORIAL organization did a gigantic work. Its members compiled the particulars and data of more than 30.000 victims of political reprisals, all of them having reference to the Krasnoyarsk region in one way or other, and drew up a data bank. The Krasnoyarsk MEMORIAL is keeping more than 70.000 documents in its archives. It organized three exhibitions, gave lectures and carried through expeditions. Thousands of victims of political reprisals and their familiy members were rendered juristic and financial support. In 1997 alone 1.400 people contacted MEMORIAL during the consultation hours. A web site was created, on which the collected materials are made accessible to the public.
All this work, which nobody is ashamed to render account of to any of the State institutions, is being done by only a few volunteers on a social basis. The State did not only refuse to support these activities, but not only once even undertook measures to counteract and to block them. Thus, numerous archival materials turned out to be unapproachable to the "Memorialists", although the possibility of becoming access to the archives is clearly defined in the Archival Law; lots of problems occurred when trying to obtain legally binding decisions concerning the receipt of special allowances payable to former victims of political reprisals and the return of confiscated property.
The Krasnoyarsk MEMORIAL organization is very grateful to the Writers' Union, the editorial departments of the "Krasnoyarsk Young Communist Leaguer" and "My Voice", the head of the regional House of Science and Technics, A. Drozdinskiy, the KTO DEMOS and the companies Maxsoft, SERDZHI and SOLO-POLYUS.
Participants of the press conference
Contact
Tel. 21 34 02
e-mail: memorial@maxsoft.ru