Dear friends!
In the newspaper "Krasnoyarsk Young Communist Leaguer", issue No. 84 of the 6th of August 1992, are listed the names of victims of reprisals, among which I also found my grandfather's, Zakhar Fyodorovich Kirillov's name, who came from the small town of Koma, district of Novoselovo. He was, in fact, arrested in the summer of the year 1937 and taken away to the NKVD; nothing is known to us about his fate. There has not been a single sign of life, he vanished without leaving a trace. In 1937 he became exposed to reprisals for the second time in his life. I do not remember the exact date, but most presumably he was dispossessed for being a kulak in 1930. He was deprived the right to vote. The "disfranchised man" was then exiled to Turukhansk or at least to the district of Turukhansk. Mother, his eldest daughter-in-law, went there, and in all probability they released him on bail. Afterwards he lived with grandmother and us in a little barn, where he also maintained his workshop. I used to be permanently around him, because he did not smoke, and when he sat down for a rest, he would crack nuts and then give some to me, as well as some kind of fruit drops, which he always carried with him ready to offer them. Whenever I stayed there too long and started to fall asleep (I was five years old at that time), he put me in front of the work bench, right on a thick layer of wood shavings, and continued his work, while more and more cuttings fell gently upon me. Until today, whenever I notice the smell of freshly shaved wood, I associate this with my grandfather sitting on his work bench and with the hot, dark, hammering oven. We lived in a settlement called "1st of august", in the very same place where the bridge crosses the river, closer to the railway rails. I do very well remember the wooden barracks, inhabitated by Chinese fishermen, where (in summer) they used to hang out their nets. But we were afraid of the Chinese. And by way of these barracks (which still stood there in the 1950s), i Learned about the whereabouts of my grandfather. At that time my father worked in Zaton for the shipyard. He was engaged in the repair of ships as a joiner, and mother and I often went there through the uncultivated fields, along the channel. It was a long way, during which I would pick all kinds of flowers.
It was a time of famine; everything what was rafted down from coma, was sold and immediately converted into food (and our parents had 6 children, after all). Then father decided to leave to the place, where he came from. he went away to Balakhta, where father had been arrested in 1935 and sentenced of being a baptist; he had been imposed a penalty of 5 years on section 58; and, after us, grandfather moved to Novoselovo and later to Koma. After father's, Agap Sakharovich Kirillov's, arrest grandfather took in the elder brother Alexey and instructed him in joinery. In Koma grandfather taught handicrafts at school. Before the dekulakization he had owned a nice house with a tin roof, situated on the hillside, directly on the banks of the little river Koma. On the lower floor he had his workshop. Throughout his whole life he was building on his little house, ornamenting it with wood carvings. In 1905, during the war against Japan, he was a medical orderly; he was awarded the George's Cross, suffered from contusions. As far as I remember he always stood in his workshop in a stoop, but he was always benevolent. Mother told us that he was a good, very attentive and utterly zealous man, and that she had never heard him say any swearwords or anything bad about someone else. He disposed of "golden hands" and showed nothing but kindness.
Dear friends, if only there is the slightest possibility to learn something about his fate, please let me know. Everything that happened cannot be made undone, but one would like to find everything out, after all, so that our children, too, can hear about the history of their ancestors, our close relatives, and will not allow such terrible events to happen again.
Apart from my grandfather I wish to mention Ilya Fyodorovich Kirillov. Yes, grandfather had a brother, Ilya Fyodorovich, whose children I knew, but now I do not have their addresses. I only know that his daughter lives in Krasnoyarsk, Sverdlovsk district, on the hill next to the timber-rafting industry.
Sincerely yours,
Alexander Ag. Kirillov
August 16, 1992