It operated in 1941-1944 in the occupied part of the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church: Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Pskov and Novgorod. Earlier, during the Great Terror of 1937-1938, the highest clergy in the north-west of Russia, as well as elsewhere in the USSR, were partially repressed, partially forced to switch to secular work, and by the summer of 1941 in the indicated dioceses (not counting Leningrad and its immediate environs ) no more than 10 temples operated. The last church in the city of Pskov itself was closed in the spring of 1941. In less than two and a half years, the believing population, with the help of the mission, managed to revive more than 300 parishes, according to other data - about 200.
For believers, the creation of the Orthodox mission was explained not only by the need for a rapid revival of church life in the “liberated areas”, but also by the fact that these areas before the war did not have a bishop who had previously led them.
The core of the Pskov mission was made up of Orthodox priests from the Riga and Narva dioceses. On August 18, 1941, the first 14 missionary priests arrived in Pskov, among whom were both graduates of the Orthodox Church and leaders of the Russian Christian Union. The first head of the Pskov Orthodox mission was Archpriest Sergius Efimov, in October 1941 he was replaced by Archpriest Nikolai Koliversky, after whose death in October 1942 Protopresbyter Kirill Zaits was appointed the new head. In the newly opened churches, Metropolitan Alexy of Leningrad, in whose diocese the missionaries served, was remembered during the services, emphasizing that the mission was part of the Russian Church. (But when Soviet planes began to scatter anti-fascist leaflets signed by Alexy, the occupation authorities banned the mention of his name in churches.)
During divine services in the occupied territory, not only the name of the exarch, but also the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne was exalted. It was officially announced that “The highest ecclesiastical authority in the Russian Orthodox Church belongs to the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, His Beatitude Sergius, and the bishops’ assembly attached to him. But the Exarchate, due to the course of military events, found itself on this side of the front and is therefore governed independently.”
The organization of the mission in 1941 was not an initiative of the occupation authorities. At first, the Germans did not even give the arriving priests food cards, which were issued to employees of the occupation administrative structures. But on September 12, 1941, Exarch Sergius turned to the German authorities with a request for assistance, where he proved to the occupiers that the Moscow Patriarchate had never reconciled with the godless government, having submitted to it only outwardly, and that therefore he, Sergius, had the moral right to call on the Russian people to fight against Bolshevism. But, despite all these statements, the Germans still distrusted Metropolitan Sergius. Thus, the abbot of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, Archimandrite Pavel (Gorshkov), whom the Germans trusted more, was summoned several times to the Gestapo in Pskov, where he was questioned in detail about the political sentiments of the exarch.
The German authorities made maximum use of the mission's work for their own propaganda purposes. Propaganda was actively carried out through newspapers and magazines published by the mission in Russian. The priests were instructed to identify unreliable individuals who were hostile to the German army and German authorities, as well as partisans and those who sympathized with them. Their duties also included collecting information about the yield of a particular area, the amount of grain, vegetables, and livestock: the rear units of the Wehrmacht wanted to know more about the possibilities of the Russian population to increase food supplies for their needs.
The days of “liberation from Bolshevism” by the Germans of other cities were also celebrated as holidays: for example, on August 9, 1942, a religious procession took place in Pskov in honor of the anniversary of the city’s liberation from Bolshevism. After the war, the missionaries made excuses that deep down they had a bad attitude towards the occupiers. One of the missionaries, Protopresbyter Alexy Ionov, dean of the Ostrovsky district in 1941-1943, wrote in his memoirs:
Several dozen priests, deacons and psalm-readers, who in the pre-war years were forced to switch to civilian work or were outside the staff, returned to serve in the churches opened with the help of the mission. The ordination of new clergy for parishes in the mission area was performed by Metropolitan Sergius, Archbishop Pavel (Dmitrovsky) and other bishops of the Baltic Exarchate. The mission issued a number of circulars regarding the need to select and vet all applicants for clergy in newly opened churches. This policy can be explained not only by the mission’s fears that there might be opponents of the Germans among the clergy, but also by the large number of impostors who, in the conditions of the massive opening of churches and the shortage of real priests created as a result of Soviet repression, posed as priests. Thus, the dean of the Gatchina district, the impostor Ivan Amozov, a former communist, was able to successfully pass himself off as a priest with the help of a certificate of release from prison, but in Kolyma in 1936 he found himself not as “persecuted for his faith,” but for bribery and bigamy.
From mid-1942, the mission began publishing the monthly magazine “Orthodox Christian. Publication of the Orthodox mission in the liberated regions of Russia." The publication was attended by priests Jacob Nachis, Nikolai Trubetskoy (editor), Konstantin Shakhovskoy, Kirill Zaits, Georgy Benigsen, Alexy Ionov, John the Easy, Georgy Taylov, Nikolay Shenrok, Archimandrite of the Epiphany Monastery Seraphim (Protsenko), laymen Baron B. G. Wrangel , R. V. Polchaninov, R. I. Matveeva. All issues of this magazine were previously censored by German propaganda services, and if they contained “too much Orthodoxy and too little anti-Bolshevik material,” their publication was not allowed. The mission published the “Orthodox Calendar for 1943.” Under the occupation conditions, it became possible to carry out church ringing (in the USSR, by the mid-1930s, restrictions were imposed on it, and in some regions it was completely prohibited), and to perform religious processions in the open air, including over long distances. Church-parish charity was revived.
A significant church event of that time was the transfer to the Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God. The icon was rescued from the burning church in Tikhvin with the participation of German soldiers, taken to Pskov and solemnly handed over to the Church by the Germans on March 22, 1942.
Missionary priests paid special attention to spiritual assistance to prisoners of war - they managed to open churches in a number of camps. Donations and clothing were collected for prisoners of war. After the prayer service, the priest always gave a sermon, explaining to the prisoners that this war was sent by God to them as punishment for the atheism of the Bolsheviks. The mission also cared for orphans. Through the efforts of parishioners, an orphanage was created at the Church of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica in Pskov for 137 boys and girls aged 6 to 15 years. For the sake of reviving religious life in the region, the priesthood began to appear on the radio: weekly broadcasts were broadcast from Pskov.
Parish life was under double control. On the one hand, the activities of the missionary priests were supervised by the occupation authorities, and on the other, by the Soviet partisans. The report of the head of the mission, Archpriest Kirill Zaits, to the German leadership noted the inconsistency of the available information: “According to some, the partisans consider the priests to be enemies of the people, whom they are trying to deal with. According to others, the partisans are trying to emphasize a tolerant, and even benevolent, attitude towards the Church and, in particular, towards priests.” The German administration was particularly interested in whether the people believed propaganda messages about changes in church policy and how they reacted to these messages. Written messages began to arrive at the Mission Directorate regularly. Their content was varied.
In August 1942, all priests of the occupied regions of the North-West of the RSFSR received a secret circular from the mission, signed by Archpriest Kirill Zayets. It gave the following tasks: 1) to identify partisans and persons associated with them; 2) among the parishioners, identify all those who are opposed to the Germans and express dissatisfaction with the German order: 3) identify all who conduct services without being ordained, that is, impostor priests; 4) identify in your parish all persons who were previously repressed by the Soviet regime. The same circular also contained assignments for purely church matters, including charitable collections by parishioners for poor children, repairs of churches, etc.
But in the outback, far from large German garrisons, not all priests carried out the orders of the Orthodox mission to assist the occupiers. Thus, the priest of the village of Rozhdestveno, Pushkin district, Leningrad region, Georgy Sviridov secretly helped prisoners of a German concentration camp, and the priest of the village of Khokhlovo, Porkhov district, Fyodor Puzanov, collaborated with the partisans, and after the Germans burned the parish, he joined the detachment.
After an agreement was concluded between Stalin and the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow in 1943, the hierarchs who gathered in Moscow signed the appeal “Condemnation of traitors to faith and fatherland,” where those who went over to the side of fascism were declared excommunicated, and bishops and clergy - defrocked, the German leadership convened a meeting of Orthodox bishops of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. The meeting was attended by Sergius himself, Metropolitan of Lithuania, Exarch of Latvia and Estonia, Archbishop Jacob of Jelgava, Pavel, Bishop of Narva and Daniel, Bishop of Koven. The meeting participants expressed their opinion on the appeals to the Russian people by Patriarchal Locum Tenens Sergius, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, on resistance to the German army and threats of excommunication to all those who collaborated with the Germans:
The highly revered hierarch, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, could not draw up or at least voluntarily sign this appeal. A number of circumstances prove that this appeal was fabricated by the Kremlin rulers and distributed on behalf of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens. ... Either he did not sign it at all, or he signed it under dire threats, wanting to save the clergy entrusted to him from complete extermination. For us, this appeal serves as clear proof that the Bolsheviks still hold the Orthodox Church in their grip, strangling it and falsifying its voice. Mourning the fate of the patriarchal locum tenens, we resolutely dissociate ourselves from the political position forcibly imposed on him and pray to the Lord for the complete and speedy liberation of the Orthodox Church from the damned Bolshevik oppression.
The Germans insisted on non-recognition of the canonicity of the election of Sergius as Patriarch by the Council of Bishops in Moscow in September 1943. The occupation authorities insisted on holding a conference with a mandatory resolution against the patriarch. But the exarch in the draft resolution did not even mention the name of the high priest, not to mention dissociation from the Moscow Patriarchate. But the mention of the name of Sergius as patriarch at the service was stopped.
In the autumn of 1943, in anticipation of a counter-offensive by Soviet troops, the German command carried out a massive evacuation of the civilian population from the front-line zone to the Baltic states. Exarch Metropolitan Sergius ordered that, during forced evacuation, parishes take with them shrines and the most valuable church property (transport appropriate to the needs was provided by the occupiers), and distributed the evacuated clergy among parish churches in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Among the valuables was the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, which later ended up in the USA.
In 2010, Vladimir Khotinenko directed the feature film “Pop”, which tells the story of a fictional character - a priest of the Pskov mission.
The last surviving member of the Pskov Orthodox mission, Archpriest Georgy Taylov, died in Latvia on May 8, 2014 at the hundredth year of his life.
Currently, the activities of the Pskov mission are a topic of controversy in the church environment. They are called heroes of the anti-Bolshevik resistance, victims of false accusations of collaboration, and traitors to their homeland. The highest clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church did not make official statements regarding the attitude towards the activities of the Pskov mission.
See also
Notes
- “Pastors and Occupiers, Part 2” Radio Liberty, 01/06/2012: On the Internet you can see a clipping from the Pskov-Riga newspaper “For the Motherland” of December 42 with photographs of Sergius and with the following “cap”: “On behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church. Lord, grant Adolf Hitler the strength for final victory."
This phenomenon was truly amazing. If only because the Pskov Orthodox mission was created simultaneously through the efforts of the main ideologist of Nazism, Alfred Rosenberg, on the one hand, and Soviet intelligence, on the other. Taking advantage of the fact that during Soviet rule there was not a single functioning parish left on Pskov land, Hitler and Rosenberg developed a plan for restoring Orthodox life here, so that the people in the occupied lands would not grumble against the invaders, but, on the contrary, would praise Hitler’s power.
At the same time, Stalin and Beria developed their own plan, according to which Orthodox priests and monks in the occupied territories were to be involved in the fight against the fascist occupiers. The main responsibility was assigned to the main organizer of reconnaissance and sabotage work in the occupied territories, Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov.
The main character on both sides was Metropolitan Sergius (Voskresensky) of Vilna and the entire Baltic region. When our troops left Riga, Sudoplatov, according to his personal recollections, hid the metropolitan so that law enforcement officers would not take him away along with the retreating troops. Next, the exarch had to act according to the plan developed by the NKVD. Remaining in Riga, he welcomed the entry of the Germans into the Baltic states. He also became the organizer of the Pskov Orthodox mission, which outwardly acted as a defender of the occupying power, but secretly supported reconnaissance and sabotage work.
Orthodox priests, on the one hand, were forced in their sermons to call the people to humility and praise the Germans for contributing to the revival of Christianity in the Pskov land. On the other hand, the same priests hid partisans, people wanted by the Gestapo, including Jews. There is evidence that in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery people were hidden under domes. No one could have guessed that someone could be hidden there. Everyone is accustomed to the fact that there can be underground workers, but it couldn’t even occur to them that there are also “sub-domestic” people! However, this topic still awaits more detailed study.
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Beginning in 1942, Orthodox priests organized a constant collection of funds to support Soviet prisoners of war in Nazi concentration camps. It is impossible to read memories of how church services and Easter liturgies were held in such camps without tears. At the same time, the Nazis often confiscated food and things collected for prisoners and sent them to the front. This usually happened at critical moments of the war for the Germans - after the defeat of Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk. Subsequently, the state security authorities blamed the members of the Pskov Orthodox Mission for deliberately collecting food and things for fascist soldiers!
The blame was also placed on the fact that Orthodox priests actively agitated the people for Hitler. But even here, the Soviet punitive authorities were in the overwhelming majority of cases unfair. Yes, in the presence of the Germans, the priests had to say something in their defense. But most often they turned to the memory of Russian soldiers who fought for the Motherland, recalled the sacred images of Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dmitry Pozharsky, Fyodor Ushakov, Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov, instilled confidence in the hearts of people that these invaders were sooner or late they will be swept off the face of the Russian land. In 1942, it was planned to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Battle of the Ice. And at that time, the shores of Lake Peipus were captured by the new knight dogs. But the Russian priests encouraged the parishioners, saying that the holy Prince Alexander Nevsky would appear invisibly and win again. Members of the Pskov Orthodox Mission especially launched anti-Hitler propaganda after the Battle of Stalingrad.
During the existence of the Pskov Orthodox Mission, Pavel Sudoplatov carried out a special operation plan codenamed “Novices”. Two agents of our special services were infiltrated into the Pskov-Pechersk monastery. They posed as members of a secret community of underground priests acting against the Soviet regime. Allegedly, this anti-Soviet Orthodox underground is so strong that it can operate in Kuibyshev, which has become a “reserve capital” since the end of 1941. Communication was established with this “Orthodox underground” via radio; two imaginary novices received information from Kuibyshev and passed it on to the Germans. In fact, it was disinformation, which played a role back in 1942, but especially helped during the battle of Kursk. The success of Operation Novices was highly praised by Stalin himself. Stalin spoke about him with his entourage on the eve of making the fateful decision to revive the patriarchate.
This great event in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church also affected the fate of the Pskov Orthodox Mission.
Until certain times, there was an ambivalent relationship between the Pskov Orthodox Mission and the Moscow Patriarchate. Of course, the patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), was aware of how and for whom the exarch of the entire Baltic region, Sergius (Voskresensky), was working. There had been friendly relations between them for a long time. But at the same time, during all the years of the war, both of them, let’s say, according to the conditions of the game, were forced to clearly speak negatively about each other. Sergius (Stragorodsky) publicly reproached Sergius Voskresensky for collaborating with Hitler, and Sergius (Voskresensky), in turn, publicly reproached Sergius (Stragorodsky) for collaborating with Stalin. At the same time, what is especially important to emphasize is that the Pskov Orthodox mission remained within the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, and not the Foreign Church! And throughout the years of the war, during services, the priests of the Pskov Orthodox Mission considered themselves under the omophorion of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Sergius (Stragorodsky) and prayed for his health.
When Sergius (Stragorodsky) was elected Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' in Moscow, Hitler demanded that all Russian priests in the occupied territories anathematize him and condemn the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. Representatives of the Russian Church Abroad gathered in Vienna and carried out Hitler's will. And Metropolitan Sergius (Voskresensky) gathered all the representatives of the Pskov Orthodox mission, which was then led by Father Kirill Zaits, discussed the essence of the issue with them, and then a decision was unanimously made: no anathema and no condemnation! From now on, the Pskov Orthodox mission considered itself subordinate to Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky). Thus, she consciously chose the path of martyrdom for herself. The Germans began to carry out repressions against Russian Orthodox priests in the Baltic and Pskov regions. However, they were not particularly successful in this, since the Soviet army was rapidly advancing. At the beginning of 1944, the Pskov land was liberated from the invaders, and the Pskov Orthodox mission ceased to exist.
The exarch of the Baltic states himself turned out to be a martyr. In the spring of 1944, the Germans decided to destroy it. The chief of the Ostland police, SS-Obergruppenführer Eckeln, was entrusted with carrying out the assassination attempt. On the road from Kaunas to Vilnius, the car in which Metropolitan Sergius was traveling was riddled with bullets.
Soon after the liberation of the Pskov land from the occupiers, the NKVD began arresting all members of the Pskov Orthodox mission. Their sentences were severe - from ten to twenty years. Many never returned from the camps. The head of the mission, Protopresbyter Kirill Zaits, who was arrested in Siauliai, received 20 years and four years later ended his days in a Kazakh camp. The head of the office of the Pskov mission, Archpriest Nikolai Zhunda, also received 20 years and died of tuberculosis in a camp in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Pechersk Bishop Peter (Pyakhkel) received 10 years and also perished in the camps. The same is the fate of many, many others who, like them, found their death behind Soviet barbed wire.
But God gave many the opportunity to return from places of imprisonment. Archpriest Nikolai Shenrok, having received 20 years, was released 11 years later from the same Kazakh camp in which Kirill Zaits died. Archpriest Sergiy Efimov returned from the same camp. Priest Jacob Nachis, having received 10 years in the camps and served them from bell to bell, began to serve in the only functioning Orthodox church in the Komi Republic, then in the Murmansk region, in a church converted into a temple from a camp barracks.
Many of the priests of the Pskov Orthodox Mission emigrated during the advance of Soviet troops and ended their days abroad, some in Sweden, some in Germany, some in America. Such is the fate of Riga Metropolitan Augustine (Peterson), Archpriests George Benigsen, Alexy Ionov, Vladimir Tolstoukhov, John the Easy and dozens of others. Who would dare to condemn them?..
Among the members of the Pskov Orthodox mission was the then young priest Nikolai Guryanov. He was ordained by Metropolitan Sergius (Voskresensky). Later, Father Nikolai served on Zalit Island on Lake Pskov and became famous as a gracious elder.
One of those who cared for his flock in the occupied territory was, as is known, the priest Mikhail Ridiger, the father of the unforgettable Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II. His Holiness had long had a plan to rehabilitate those who, like his father, were forced to serve God under the Germans. With his blessing, in 2005, the Orthodox Encyclopedia Church Scientific Center approached me with a request to create a literary basis for a film dedicated to the Pskov Orthodox Mission, and provided all the necessary materials. This is how my novel “Pop” appeared, published in 2007 with the blessing of Patriarch Alexy in the publishing house of the Moscow Sretensky Monastery. Based on this novel, together with film director Vladimir Ivanovich Khotinenko, a believer and a long-time churchgoer, we set about creating a script for a full-length feature film. At the same time, preparations for filming were underway. His Holiness the Patriarch closely followed our work. After reading the script, he approved it. With his approval, the actors for the main roles were also selected. As a result, Sergei Makovetsky was chosen for the role of priest Alexander Ionin, and Nina Usatova for the role of mother. Both he and she are also Orthodox churchgoers. The Patriarchate appointed the rector of the Moscow Church of the Holy Trinity in Listy, Hegumen Kirill (Korovin), as a consultant for the film. Priest Sergius Vishnevsky also gave a lot of good advice, and he also presented the belt of Metropolitan Sergius (Voskresensky), which was once given to him by one of the parishioners of the exarch killed by the Nazis.
Filming took place in Belarus and in the vicinity of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, and the sound stages took place at Mosfilm. Alas, during filming in Belarus, sad news came there about the death of the main customer of the film - our dear Patriarch Alexy. Moreover, what is significant is that the episode of Easter, the Holy Resurrection of Christ in 1942, was being filmed.
When the film was edited, it was accepted by a commission headed by Archbishop Arseny of Istra, vicar of the Moscow diocese. The clergy and cultural figures highly praised the film. The music for it was written by the wonderful composer Alexey Rybnikov. The film is released in the fall of 2009.
In many ways, this must be an unusual phenomenon in cinema. The main character is a village priest, moreover, forced to serve during the Nazi occupation. For the first time, a feature film was shot under the auspices of the Moscow Patriarchate and under the direct supervision of the patriarch.
And, besides, it will be an unusual film about love. Not the one we are used to seeing on the screen, most often - rebellious. And about the love of two spouses - father and mother, priest and priest. About the love that these people carried throughout their lives until their death.
Karaganda forced labor camp of the OGPU (1931 - 1959)In May of this year, a resolution was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the organization of the Kazakh forced labor camp (KazITLAG). However, a year later, on December 19 of the year, another decision was made: “The first department of KazITLAG - the state farm “Giant” - will be reorganized on this date into the Karaganda separate forced labor camp of the OGPU, abbreviated as “Karlag OGPU”, with direct subordination to the “GULAG” and the location Administration of the camp in the village of Dolinskoye."
One of the first policy documents states: “The Karaganda state farm giant OGPU receives an honorable and responsible task - to develop the grandiose region of Central Kazakhstan.” On the territory of the future camp at that time there were 4 thousand Kazakh yurts and 1200 households of Russians, Germans and Ukrainians. The forced eviction of people from inhabited areas began, in which NKVD troops took part. Germans, Russians and Ukrainians were resettled mainly to the Telmansky, Osakarovsky and Nura districts of the Karaganda region. The eviction coincided with dispossession and confiscation of livestock. The confiscated cattle were transferred to the Gigant state farm. And along the sides of the roads there were dead people who had perished from hunger, and no one was in a hurry to bury them.
After the eviction, at the end of 1931, the empty lands were occupied by numerous columns of prisoners arriving from all over the Soviet Union. The first inhabitants of Karlag, according to the recollections of old-timers, were monks and priests. The number of prisoners grew from year to year, and along with it the “giant state farm” grew and developed.
“Karlag” is allocated 120,000 hectares of arable land, 41,000 hectares of hayfields. The length of the territory of Karlag from north to south is 300 km and from east to west - 200 km. In addition, outside this territory there were two branches: Akmola, located 350 km from the center of the camp, and Balkhash branch, located 650 km from the center of the camp. One of the main goals of the Karlag organization was the creation of a large food base for the rapidly developing coal and metallurgical industry of Central Kazakhstan: the Karaganda coal basin, Zhezkazgan and Balkhash copper smelters. In addition, labor was needed to create and develop these industries.
The Karlag administration was subordinate only to the OGPU (NKVD) Gulag in Moscow. Republican and regional party and Soviet bodies had virtually no influence on the activities of the camp. It was a colonial-type formation with its own metropolis in Moscow. Essentially, it was a state within a state. It had real power, weapons, vehicles, and maintained a post office and telegraph. Its numerous branches - “points” - were linked into a single economic mechanism, with their own state plan.
The structure of Karlag was quite cumbersome and had numerous departments: administrative and economic (AHO), accounting and distribution (URO), control and planning (KGTO), cultural and educational (KVO), personnel department for civilians, supply, trade, III-operchekist , financial, transport, political department. The last department of Karlag sent 17 types of reports monthly to the Gulag administration, and the entire camp administration did the same. High profitability (cheap labor, minimal cost of assets, low depreciation costs) contributed to the expansion of production.
On July 27, Karlag was closed (reorganized into the UMP of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Karaganda region). Nowadays, the Museum of Memory of Victims of Political Repression has been organized in the village of Dolinka.
Prisoners of Karlag
The number of prisoners sometimes reached, according to various sources, 65-75 thousand people. Over the entire period of Karlag’s existence, more than 1 million prisoners visited it.
In the list below we are trying to collect the names of Karlag prisoners who served their sentences for church matters. This list does not pretend to be complete; it will be updated gradually as material becomes available. Dates in brackets are arrival at camp (unless otherwise indicated) and departure (or death). The list is ordered by latest date.
- sschmch. Alexy Ilyinsky, priest. (18 June 1931 - 4 August 1931), died in Karlag
- sschmch. Mikhail Markov, priest. (April 22, 1933 - April 29, 1934), sentence replaced by exile to Kazakhstan
- Spanish Nikolai Rozov, prot. (1931 - June 23, 1933), released early
- sschmch. Leonid Biryukovich, prot. (1935 - spring 1937), released early due to extreme deterioration of health
- sschmch. Pavel Gaidai, priest. (January 22, 1936 - September 5, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Victor Ellansky, prot. (April 15, 1936 - September 8, 1937), executed
- martyr Dimitry Morozov (May 16, 1937 - September 8, 1937), executed
- martyr Petr Bordan (1936 - September 8, 1937), executed
- prmts. Ksenia (Cherlina-Brailovskaya), mon. (November 20, 1933 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
- sschmch. Damascene (Cedric), bishop. b. Glukhovskoy (October 27, 1936 - September 15, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Vasily Zelensky, priest. (January 2, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
- sschmch. Victor Basov, priest. (November 12, 1935 - September 15, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Vladimir Morinsky, priest. (June 8, 1935 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Burma branch of Karlag
- sschmch. Theodotus Shatokhin, priest. (February 14, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
- sschmch. Evfimy Goryachev, prot. (September 6, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Burma branch of Karlag
- sschmch. John Melnichenko, priest. (December 14, 1935 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Burma branch of Karlag
- sschmch. Stefan Yaroshevich, priest. (February 27, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
- sschmch. John Smolichev, priest. (December 7, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Burma branch of Karlag
- sschmch. Pyotr Novoselsky (December 16, 1935 - September 15, 1937), executed in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
- sschmch. Evgeniy (Zernov), Metropolitan. Gorkovsky (1935 - September 20, 1937), executed
- prmch. Evgeny (Vyzhva), abbot. (1936 - September 20, 1937), executed
- prmch. Pachomius (Ionov), priest. (September 25, 1935 - September 20, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Zechariah (Lobov), archbishop. Voronezhsky (February 8, 1936 - September 21, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Joseph Arkharov, priest. (March 8, 1936 - September 21, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Stefan Kostogryz, priest. (February 10, 1936 - September 26, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Alexander Aksenov, priest. (March 5, 1937 - September 26, 1937), executed
- prmch. Nikolai (Ashchepiev), abbot. (September 16, 1935 – September 1937), executed by firing squad
- sschmch. Stefan Kreidich, priest. (1936 - September 1937), shot
- sschmch. Theoktist Smelnitsky, prot. (September 10, 1936 - October 3, 1937), executed
- prmch. Mauritius (Poletaev), archim. (February 9, 1936 - October 4, 1937), executed
- martyr Vasily Kondratyev (January 8, 1936 – October 4, 1937), executed
- martyr Vladimir Pravdolyubov (December 2, 1935 – October 4, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Alexander Orlov, priest. (February 8, 1936 - November 2, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Zosima Pepenin, priest. (October 11, 1935 - November 2, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Leonid Nikolsky (October 17, 1935 – November 2, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Ioann Ganchev, prot. (1936 - November 2, 1937), executed
- sschmch. John Rechkin, priest. (February 25, 1936 - November 2, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Ioann Rodionov, prot. (1933 - November 2, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Nikolai Figurov, priest. (1935 - November 2, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Mikhail Isaev, deacon (February 7 – November 2, 1937), executed by firing squad
- martyr Pavel Bocharov (January 23, 1936 – November 2, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Peter Kravets, protod. (September 13 - November 2, 1937), shot
- martyr Georgy Yurenev (August 27, 1936 – November 20, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Sergius (Zverev), archbishop. Yeletsky (1936 - November 20, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Nikolai Romanovsky, prot. (1931 - November 20, 1937), executed
- sschmch. Vasily Krasnov, priest. (December 16, 1935 – November 20, 1937), executed by firing squad
- sschmch. Seraphim (Ostroumov), archbishop. Smolensky (April - November 1937), arrested in the camp, sent to Smolensk, where he was shot
- sschmch. John Glazkov, priest. (June 3, 1934 - December 10, 1937), executed
- martyr Leonid Salkov (September 1935 - March 7, 1938), executed
- martyr Pyotr Antonov (1935 - March 7, 1938), executed
- sschmch. John of Preobrazhensky, protodeacon (September 19, 1937 – June 11, 1938), died in the camp
- Spanish Sevastian (Fomin) (1933 - April 29, 1939), released
- sschmch. Pavel Dobromyslov, Rev. (July 16, 1938 - February 9, 1940), died in the 8th Chur-Nura department
- sschmch. John Anserov, priest. (May 27, 1938 - May 6, 1940), died in Karlag, on a camp assignment Burma
- prmts. Marfa (Testova), nun (May 3, 1938 - April 26, 1941), died in the camp hospital at the Spassky department of Karlag
- sschmch. John Spassky (1937 - May 10, 1941), died in the camp hospital at the Spassky department of Karlag
- sschmch. Nikolai Benevolensky, prot. (July 12, 1940 - May 16, 1941), died in the Spassky branch of Karlag
- sschmch. Ismail Bazilevsky, priest. (March 1941 - November 17, 1941), re-arrested in the camp and executed
- Peter Tveritin, priest. (July 25, 1936 - December 3, 1941), died in Karlag
- sschmch. Nikolai Krylov, prot. (December 2, 1936 - December 12, 1941), died in Karlag
- martyr Dimitry Vlasenkov (May 11, 1941 - May 5, 1942), died in the camp hospital of the Espinsky branch of Karlag
- mts. Natalia Sundukova (March 9, 1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Agrippina Kiseleva
- mts. Anna Borovskaya (January 11, 1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Anna Popova (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Varvara Derevyagina (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Evdokia Guseva (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Evdokia Nazina (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Evfrosiniya Denisova (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Matrona Navolokina (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Natalia Vasilyeva (October 30, 1940 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Natalia Siluyanova (March 13, 1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
- mts. Feoktista Chentsova (November 19, 1937 - February 16, 1942), died in one of the Karlag departments
- mts.
In 1931, the “Giant” state farm with an area of 17 thousand hectares was organized in the Kazakh steppe. Under this name an institution appeared that, from 1931 to 1959, forever distorted the fates of 6 million political prisoners, internees and prisoners of war. The name of this bloody monster is Karlag NKVD...
Ground floor corridor. Torture chambers, punishment cells and an execution wall were located here, from the blog, 2015
Kazakhs, Germans, Russians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Belarusians, Jews, Chechens, Ingush, French, Georgians, Italians, Kyrgyz, Ukrainians, Japanese, Finns, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians - the hellish millstones of the NKVD ground everyone, without distinguishing nationalities
Punishment cell. The prisoner was allowed to sleep on the ice floor 4 hours a day. The rest of the time he was required to stand. People were severely beaten for trying to lean against the wall, from the blog, 2015 The Karlag system included many camps and special purpose zones (osoblags). The largest of them are Spaslag (prisoners of war), Algeria (Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the Motherland) Steplag (Ukrainians, Balts, Vlasovites). The administrative center of Karlag became the village of Dolinka, 50 km from Karaganda. The total territory of Karlag is comparable in area to the territory of France...
Particularly intractable people were put in a hole and not given water or food for several days, from the blog, 2015 The main activity of the prisoners was the extraction of stone for the construction of roads. All work was done manually. People died from cold, hunger and physical exhaustion. The weakest were finished off by the guards... At the time of the creation of the camps, authorized special units of the NKVD forcibly evicted the entire local population from this territory. Often with forced confiscation of livestock. For the Kazakhs this meant starvation...
Torture chamber. The smell of blood is still here. People were beaten, tortured with electricity, their fingers were broken with hammers, from the blog, 2015 No count was kept of those who died from disease, and personal records were destroyed after death. So the person disappeared forever. The intelligentsia of the Soviet Union were exiled to Karlag, among whom were such names as the greatest biologist Chizhevsky, Lev Gumilyov, Father Sevastyan...
Ivan Ivanovich Karpinsky, a participant in the Kengir uprising, was a prisoner of Steplag.
I myself am from Ukraine. I was arrested for reading bourgeois literature. It was a book on the history of Ukraine. For this they gave me 25 years in the camps. And I myself was only 19... So I ended up in the village of Kengir, whose prisoners were building Zhezkazgan. Mostly there were young people from Ukraine, Balts and Vlasovites.
The security was fierce. Prisoners were killed for no reason. On Easter, the guards fired at a convoy of prisoners. The next day the entire camp did not show up for work. A lesson was sent to our camp. Criminals. So that they can kill us. But we didn’t let them do this. Then 15 people died in the massacre. This was the limit...
On May 16, 1954, we blocked the camp and demanded a change in the camp regime. We held the line for 42 days. And on June 26, several landmines were dropped on us from an airplane. And then tanks entered the camp. They shot at the barracks and crushed people. The whole earth was covered in blood. Neither children nor women were spared.
To the question: “How did you survive?”, Ivan Ivanovich began to cry...
We were taken to be killed in ore wagons. They wanted to throw it into a mine. For fifteen minutes we hung over the abyss. If you pressed a button, you would go 40 meters down. But at the last moment they changed their decision. And that's how I survived...
Polina Petrovna Ostapchuk, former prisoner of Karlag.
I'm from Ukraine. After the war, we were very hungry, and I collected money for a government loan after the war. 50 rubles each. There was a lot of money back then. I stood up to the authorities on behalf of a widow with four children, so that they would not take money from her. For this they gave me 10 years. They assigned me work for American intelligence. They didn’t let me sleep for a week, and I signed everything.
In 1948 I was sent to Spassk. I stayed there for 4 years. She survived miraculously. Then there was Aktas. Construction in summer, factory in winter. 4 years on a jackhammer. And I got out already in 1956, after serving 8 years.
In my youth, I was a prominent girl, and the camp commandant began to court me. He followed me for four months, but I did not respond to his advances, then he threatened to arrange a “tram” for me - this is when 11 men are raped, and the 12th one comes with syphilis. One girl was infected this way and soon died. I had to agree to save my life. So in the zone I lost my virginity and gave birth to my first son... A lot of people died. From our department in Spassk, five coffins were taken out per day. The coffins were light - the people were so exhausted...
From the blog, 2015 Zoya Mikhailovna Slyudova is a child of Karlag.
Mom was expelled from Belarus in 1939, she was 18 years old. I was born in 1940 and grew up in Dolinka. Our teachers were “wives of traitors to the Motherland.” And at the age of 8 we were transferred to the Kompaneisky orphanage. The teachers took our bread. There was no heating in winter. We carried the children out dead ourselves. Many died. Children were buried in wooden barrels. There were no coffins allocated for them. We were the children of enemies of the people, they didn’t feel sorry for us...
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Travel photographer:
I continue the camp theme that I started - the Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the motherland. Only from Astana we will now move to Karaganda - fortunately, this is not far at all by the standards of Kazakhstan.
In 1930, in the middle of the Great Steppe, the state farm “Giant” arose, a year later it turned into the Karaganda forced labor camp - one of the largest, along with Vorkuta and Kolyma, “islands” of the Gulag, stretching for hundreds of kilometers and containing up to 65 thousand prisoners at a time (as well as another 12 to 40 thousand in “special estates”). Even then it was clear that the interior regions of Kazakhstan, in terms of their undeveloped nature and resource potential, were worthy of the Far North; there were already plans for grandiose development of the local mines, and Karlag was entrusted with the task of preparing the Steppe for development. In 1931, the entire civilian population (mostly settlers from the early twentieth century) was evicted from the territory of Karlag, and prisoners were taken in their place - initially peasants from the Russian Black Earth Region, then everyone else. Karlag operated until 1959, during which time its prisoners built Karaganda, Ekibastuz, Dzhezkazgan, Balkhash and dozens of other cities and towns, connected them with railways and roads, established land reclamation, establishing fields and pastures in the steppe. Among them were Lev Gumilev, Chizhevsky, Solzhenitsyn.
The center of Karlag was not Karaganda, but the village of Dolinka (5.7 thousand inhabitants) 45 kilometers west of the latter. Or even not the center - the capital: it was not the prisoners who lived here, but the authorities. And what’s even more surprising is that the village has hardly changed since then...
, year 2012 Pay attention to the monument - the symbol is already familiar from the ALGERIA memorial. Until recently, the Department was in the same neglected state as the village itself; they apparently began to cultivate it for the 80th anniversary of Karlag, and the museum was opened on May 31, 2010 - on the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression. That everything here is “brand new” can be seen with the naked eye:
, year 2012 The Karlag Museum generally has a lot in common with the ALZHIR Museum - only here everything is much worse. The museum itself is made even stronger - with long corridors, supports in the shape of gallows, frightening dim lighting, barely audible voices telling in Russian about the atrocities that were happening here - it acts very strongly and somehow implicitly: anxiety and depression grow gradually and imperceptibly, and You feel them fully only when you come out into the light of day again, and even thinking about the reliability of the proposed facts seems like blasphemy. You can evaluate this, for example, here (there are also the memories of prisoners), but I didn’t really manage to photograph anything: like in most museums in Kazakhstan, photography is prohibited here, but unlike ALZHIR, you can’t even walk around the Karlagov Museum Unaccompanied. As a result, I walked in a group of four people with two guides, who practically did not take their eyes off me, as if I was not trying to photograph something, but to steal it. In fact, there are a lot of interesting things here - documents, things, interiors (including the chief’s office with a painting on the theme of Lenin, painted by one of the prisoners)... I did film something:
, year 2012 The laboratory here is not accidental - Karlag had two dozen “sharashkas”, in which, again, scientists worked with forced labor, but in their specialty - in the development of such a complex area, the strength of the working hands alone was not enough. This may be due to the concentration of intelligentsia in Karlag - for example, the biophysicist Chizhevsky or the geneticist Efraimson. And Lev Gumilyov, thrown into the depths of the Great Steppe, could not help but draw new ideas for his theories here (considering that he was no stranger to the camps - before that he had survived several years in Norilsk).
For some reason, I managed to photograph most of all in the basement of the Directorate, where the interiors of various cells were recreated - located, of course, not here, but in the barracks of other camps. More precisely, I filmed only the male and female cameras:
, year 2012 And a torture chamber... Much of what was presented here seemed quite controversial to me. For example, in the punishment cell here there is a pit with bars on top, into which the guilty were supposedly put. In the torture chamber there are some very medieval tools, like hooks for hanging a person from the ceiling. I couldn’t help but wonder if similar technologies were used in the Gulag? At least in such quantities as to be a system?..
But overall, it was very nice to get out of these halls and into the air. I walked along the gloomy and dusty streets of Dolinka wherever my eyes led me. Many fences have barbed wire. Previously, I had only seen this in the Komi Republic, and I immediately remembered that Karaganda and Vorkuta are essentially sisters. In the barracks built by prisoners for their guards, descendants of prisoners now live... The name makes you feel uneasy. They say that initially children were buried here - there was also an orphanage in Dolinka, because some prisoners came here pregnant, others were subjected to violence, and many children died from disease and hunger.
, year 2012 Their graves are represented by bent crosses just above the weeds... Only when leaving here on the PAZik did I suddenly notice that in Dolinka I didn’t seem to meet a single Kazakh. Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Lithuanians live here, but they are completely different from those who live in Russia or Ukraine. There are three zones operating here to this day - however, they contain quite ordinary criminals. Like Perm-36 with its crazy people walking around the village, Dolinka left a feeling of a “cursed place.”
KarLAG- (Karaganda forced labor camp) one of the largest forced labor camps in 1930-1959, subordinate to the Gulag of the NKVD of the USSR. Over the years of its existence, Karlag received about a million people. By the beginning of the 1950s Karlag... ... Wikipedia
Karlag- Karaganda camp, Karaganda... Dictionary of abbreviations and abbreviations
Karaganda forced labor camp- Karlag (Karaganda forced labor camp) one of the largest forced labor camps in 1930-1959, subordinate to the Gulag of the NKVD of the USSR. Over the years of its existence, Karlag received about a million people. By the beginning of the 1950s Karlag... ... Wikipedia
GULAG- A; GULAG, a; m. State Administration of Corrective Labor Camps, Settlements and Places of Detention. Prisoners of the Gulag. ● Existed in 1934 1956. under the NKVD. / About the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Socialist city Eastern European... encyclopedic Dictionary
forced labor camp- (ITL), in the USSR in 1929 56 one of the places for serving a sentence of imprisonment. The ITL system, under a slightly different name, existed in 1918-19 and included special forced labor camps, where persons who posed a danger to... ... were sent. encyclopedic Dictionary
Karaganda- This term has other meanings, see Karaganda (meanings). City of Karaganda Karaganda Coat of Arms ... Wikipedia
Akmola camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland- The request "ALZHIR" is redirected here; see also other meanings. "ALGER" The climate of the Kazakh steppe is very harsh. Sizzling 40 degree heat and clouds of insects... Wikipedia
SVITL- (North-Eastern forced labor camp) a unit operating within the structure of the OGPU NKVD of the USSR. Contents 1 History 2 Production 3 Management ... Wikipedia
Gulag- This term has other meanings, see Gulag (rock band). The Main Directorate of Camps and Places of Detention (GULag) is a division of the NKVD of the USSR, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, the Ministry of Justice of the USSR, which carried out the management of places of mass... ... Wikipedia
Karaganda- City of Karaganda Karaganda Coat of Arms ... Wikipedia
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