The prosecutor’s office interrupted swimming on the bones – Picture of the day – Kommersant

The prosecutor’s office of the Knyazhpogostsky district of the Komi Republic achieved the burial of the remains of the Gulag prisoners. Bone fragments of the victims of repressions were found on the unofficial city beach of the city of Yemva. However, municipal officials refused to bury them, citing a lack of funds in the budget. As a result, the prosecutor’s office had to force them through the courts.

Komi senior assistant prosecutor Natalia Spiridonova told Kommersant that human bones were found near a reservoir near house number 5 on Dorozhnaya Street in the city of Yemva (the administrative center of the Knyazhpogostsky district). “The district prosecutor’s office established that the place, which is used as a summer recreation area, was equipped back in the distant 1980s. At that time, local authorities dug a quarry to create an artificial reservoir. The territory has become a traditional location for citizens in the status of an unauthorized beach and swimming, ”she explained.

According to Mrs. Spiridonova, for many years vacationers have noticed fragments of human bones floating up from the water and “crawling out” from the ground on the shore due to subsidence of the soil.

“A forensic medical examination of the remains collected in April 2021 confirmed their belonging to at least three people. At the same time, an expert conclusion was made that death or death occurred more than 15 years ago, ”the employee of the prosecutor’s office specified.

According to archival data from the Knyazhpogost Regional Museum of Local History, the Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Republic of Komi, and the Information Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Republic of Komi, an unofficial mass grave of Gulag prisoners was located at the site of the discovery of the remains in the 1930s–1950s.

“In all regions of our country, there is a federal law on burial and funeral business. Taking into account its requirements, when discovering old military and previously unknown graves – these include the burials of victims of mass repressions – local governments are required to designate and register the places of discovery. And then organize the reburial of the remains,” explained Mrs. Spiridonova. According to her, the Yemva administration evaded this procedure, citing a lack of funds in the budget. The prosecutor of the Knyazhpogost district filed a lawsuit to force officials to inspect the burial site of the victims of repression and reburial the found remains at the public cemetery of Yemva.

“The court satisfied the requirements of our district prosecutor in full. We are waiting for the decision to enter into force and then we will control its implementation by the city authorities,” said Ms. Spiridonova.

The local history museum of the Kommersant district confirmed that in Soviet times one of the branches of the Northern railway camp of the GULAG system was located in Yemva.

“It was a forced labor camp. It functioned from May 10, 1938 to July 24, 1950. Convicted under “political articles” were brought there not only from all over the Komi ASSR, but also from different parts of the country,” the museum reported.

The archives reflect that the camp was directly subordinate to the Main Directorate of Camps of the NKVD because of the specialization that was strategically important for the state. Forced free labor of prisoners was used during the construction of railways. They often died right during the execution of work, the museum emphasized, from physical weakness due to malnutrition and torture, from cold and illness due to the harsh conditions of camp life. Among Komi historians, it is generally accepted that legal burials in the Gulag system were carried out much less frequently than illegal ones. As a rule, the camp authorities, at the suggestion of the NKVD, underestimated the statistics of deaths in official journals and other documents in order to hide the true scale of the Great Terror from the public.

Daria Shuchalina, Syktyvkar