Piotr Deonisovich Matveev – a former member of a family of victims of reprisals.
I want to tell you about my bitter youth during the period of Stalinist repressionws. Our family of seven lived in the village of Chigiteyevo, Aklinsk district, Chita region, till this unfortunate incident. One night, in February 1931, our father (Deonis Uvarovich Matveev) was arrested and taken away to some unknown place. Soonafter all our cattle was confiscated. We did not know, what to live on. But we did not have to think about this problem for long, either, since they forced us to get on rackwaggons and then transported us away to the railway station of Darasun. There we met our father. In the further course of events we reached the central mining area in the Udereisk district (today called the district of Motygino), Krasnoyarsk region. We had no mother. And then, on the 28th of March 1937, the next misfortune befell us – our father was arrested once again. We, the young birds, were practically thrown out of the nest, we were left behind as orphans. We had to go through critical years (there was the system of food ration coupons, the severe climate). The resettlers suffered a lot from scurvy; hunger came as an additional difficulty (the mortality rate was high). It is painful to recall all this ...
Then the war broke out. In 1943 they needed us, too – we were drafted into the army. On the battlefield we defended our fatherland in an honourable way and with good conscience. We were three brothers, all of us were wounded and are in possession of decorations. I am a second degree invalid. Well, and our father was never heard of again. We do not even know, where his mortal remains were buried [...].