Nikolai Arakcheev:

This expressive uncle in camouflage is most often capable of, it seems, can be sagged to participate in the next research of even the most thick -skinned official. Former head of the police school, deputy of the Supreme Council of Mari El (1990 - 1994), he parted without regret with the nomenclature reality in the wake of the era of publicity in the late 1980s. It is not destined to be built into any configuration taking into account the realities of today-the position does not allow him. For more than twenty years, Nikolai Arakcheev reveals to the inhabitants of Mari El the little -known pages of the past and ensures that historical justice triumph. He, as the chairman of the republican “memorial”, is laid for him.

-The organization " Memorial " in the Mari El, it seems, is on the ear, and everyone can see your active activity to search for the burial places of the victims of repression, on the organization of the Gulag Museum in our republic, in person you are personally held regarding the development methods of the historical part of Yoshkar-Ola. Nevertheless, what is the regional branch of the Memorial company ?

- We are already a quarter of a century. All this time, volunteers are closely monitoring the change in legislation, monitor social processes, tirelessly contributing to the preservation of historical memory. According to the charter, the sphere of influence of the "memorial" is extensive. We meet old -timers, we are looking for certificates of NKVD veterans in the archives, the KGB of the USSR about the presence in the forests, city parks, on the wastelands of secret special polygons to dispose of the remains of the victims of executions. Not so long ago, they put on human rights records 6 of such secret special objects on which archaeological studies can soon be conducted. To everyone who addresses us, our specialists and volunteers are ready to help. The Memorial collaborates with other public organizations of the republic, such as, for example, “Man and Law”, “Association of Victims of Political Repressions”, “Committee against torture”, Osopik.

- Do you have a lot of supporters, activists?

- Initially, our ranks consisted of over 10,000 people - victims and victims of Gosterror, scientists of all republican universities, teachers, historians, local historians, researchers of Vopik, museum workers, librarians, archivists, even deputies and clergy. Over time, many by age did not, and the fashion for volunteering passed. The most persistent remained. Now in the regional branch of the Memorial there are less than 2000 people. Young volunteers are the most active of our assistants (I remind you that anyone can become a participant in the Memorial, an adequate citizen who loves his native culture and the history of the small homeland). We have more than 20 people, plus our veteran and scientific asset: the Knowledge Society, lecturers of the Orthodox Center, honorary citizens of the city of Yoshkar-Ola are also many, more than 60 people. With the opening of the Gulag Museum in Yoshkar-Ola, they all provide us, guests and residents of the republic.

-The monument, a monument to the victims of political repression in Yoshkar-Ola has a rich background. This was only in the last two years traded and announced, and then began the construction of the memorial on the street. Red Army. Who, if not for you to know all the vicissitudes associated with perpetuating the victims of political repression.

- Three President Mari El, four mayors and thousands of caring residents of the country participated in this project. Different diasporas, parishioners and rectors of all faiths, dozens of public organizations initiated the organization and holding of three republican (apparently, by the number of governments of the Republic of Mari El) state competitions for the best project of the memorial to the victims of totalitarianism of the twentieth century. Prominent architects, artists, sculptors, art historians and people's craftsmen participated in them. Dozens of projects are displayed and published in the republican media. The winner after the long-term hot debate of the jury recognized the project of a resident of Yoshkar-Ola, an honored architect of Russia and an activist of Memorial Anatoly Galitsky. Under his vigilant author’s control, the construction and decoration of the monument, personifying grief, sorrow and memory in honor of those of our ancestors who innocently suffered for “dissent” during the years of Bolshevism, are completed. The twentieth century is still covered with terrible secrets of "medieval" darkness.

- Almost all the time that projects were developed and contests were held was known the location of the memorial, where the mortgage stone was located for quite some time. You have something to tell you and on this subject ...

- The mortgage stone that appeared on this place on August 31, 1993 has now generally disappeared from the construction site. Well, the quarter No. 4 of the historical zone of the capital, where the president’s government Zotin planned to initially establish a memorial, in past years repeatedly tried to redeem various initiative and enterprising people. They turned to me with a proposal to sign the consent to the construction, for example, a Pivbar with a toilet or transfer the location of the memorial to the wasteland on the banks of the Malaya Kokshagi or to the square near Nikonov Square, or to the Tikhvinsky Pogost (the territory of the Yoshkar-Olya Central Park, -Ed .). The quarter was sold to the Moscow builders to the presidency of Kislitsin, and they, not on the ceremony, put up the mortgage stone one night on the side of the road, and the next morning they drove equipment and began digging a foundation pit for the construction of an apartment building. Construction began without approvals, without archaeological research.

- The memorial to the victims, in the end, was built next to this house. What are the official data on the number of victims of repression in Mari El today?

- So far, it has only been correctly established that the state authorities of the MASSR have been dispossessed and exiled without means of existence to Lesopal (mainly for the Urals, where 50% immediately died out) with confiscation of the total property of 16 thousand of the most daring, smart, enterprising villagers and 10 thousand “enemies of the people”, arrested according to the ominous 58 tbsp. The Criminal Code of the RSFSR (among them 4 chapters of the republic, 1 head of Yoshkar-Ola, over 90% of the business and cultural elite), their names are immortalized by us with the help of the government, the archives of the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Supreme Court in the three-volume of the “tragedy of the people”, under the scientific editorship of the Honorary Chairman of the Mari Memorial, Professor Marga, and an honorary citizen. Yoshkar-Ola Ksenofont Nikanorovich Sanukov. In honor of the twelve prisoners of the Gulag, the streets of our capital are named.

- You have repeatedly talked about the amazing cases of the opposite - when the memory of the executioners - people who served in the security authorities of the republic is still immortalized.

- For four killed Chekists: Volkova, Zarubin, Anisimov and Danilova, over 100 people were executed on the spot within a day, one woman was publicly hanged at the bazaar square (now the Kremlin). The village of Princess, where all this happened, all Yoshkar-Olins know well. This is Danilovo, renamed immediately after unrest, and in the late 1960s - again, since the new name was not fixed in any way. The names of Volkov, Zarubin and Anisimov are named the existing streets of Yoshkar-Ola. He headed the “cleansing” in the princess Jan Krastyns, the commander of the Latvian regiment and the new head of the district Cheka. The street of his name also safely exists in the capital of the republic. Examples of perpetuating the memory of those whose hands on the elbow in the blood of their fellow tribesmen are enough in other settlements of the republic: the village of Yurino, the village of Kokshaysk, the city of Kozmodemyansk, the village of Rong, the village of Morki. They honor, as veterans, prominent state and public figures of cavaliers of the Leninist orders of Vrubblevsky, Karacharov, Bystryakov, the executioner of Tsvetkov and Chernov. And, on the contrary, the names of honest and decent citizens who made a significant contribution to the development of the Mari Territory in 19-20 centuries are undeservedly forgotten. What are only the names of the people's chosen ones to the State Duma and the Constituent Assembly of the native of the village of Toktaybelyak, Kuzenersky district, Alexander Egorovich Kropotov (subsequently he headed the Urzhum district) or Stepan Petrovich Solovyov. Undoubtedly, each of them, to the best of his strength and beliefs, even before the election to state men benefited the native land and its inhabitants. Both are repressed, and Solovyov is shot. Their names, as monitoring shows, is not in school museums, rural administrations, in the names of native rural streets, parks, squads, schools. Their graves are forgotten; Unfortunately, even teachers do not know their famous fellow countrymen.

-Is it possible, in this case, in general, to talk about some particularly short historical memory of the Yoshkar-olins, the inhabitants of the republic?

- Graceful spiritual sins: envy, lies, bumps and indifference gave rich shoots. Separating and dominating, the slave slaves soon destroyed the centuries-old shrines - temples and faith, creating a new pagan idol. Power was afraid of unifying power of memory. Therefore, all the churchyards in the village of the village, if necessary, 25 years after the last burial, turned into recreation parks, attractions, denders, squares, walking sites, and cemetery churches - in tires, warehouses, stables, etc. In the 1920s, Tikhvinsky, Berezovsky, Zhukovo-Pakhomovsky, Varaksinsky and Monastic (Convent) Pogosts were closed. The memory of the townspeople was successfully shortened by fear and ignorance. A semi -literate person - his own shirt closer to the body. Most “intoxicated” without faith, was engaged in the search for temptations, food and householder. At the same time, the peasant community in the village was destroyed. In search of the best share, more and more immigrants went to the cities. The sprouts of indifference and complete indifference to the past, apathy today dominate in the youth environment not only of our region, but throughout the country. Individualism goes off scale to the point that children do not know and do not go to the graves of relatives even on parental days.

- The question of city cemeteries, which now and now find themselves in the area of ​​interests of various construction organizations and just confirms the accusation about short historical memory. After all, we do not even have a set of schemes, plans, maps on which all the old tsarvokokshai and surrounding villages of the cemetery would be depicted. Or is there? And the current attitude of the official city structures responsible for the condition of the Turan and Markovsky cemeteries closed to the burial also testifies in favor of this prevailing opinion. The media of the republic not so long ago talked about the story of a bunch of garbage, located for several years right behind the grave of the honorary citizen of the city Boris Vasilievich Babushkin.
- Here, I, I admit, are monitoring the fate of those who are engaged in the construction “on the bones”, there are amazing observations. I think that sooner or later, sacrilege somehow affects them. As for the location of nine city cemeteries: we collected it 10 years ago with the mentioned Boris Vasilyevich Babushkin. Three years ago they transferred her to Marga. The same scheme includes six secret special polygons on the disposal of human remains. At the removal of garbage from graveyards, the community saves, I see myself. I am there monthly.

- How is the “ memorial ” in official republican structures perceived?

“ They suffer us, but we are mutually tolerant to each other.” Relations are restrained, partner. Both sides, without crossing borders, strive to extract maximum benefits from contacts. I think that we are doomed to cooperate in the framework of the Federal Law of October 18, 1991. "On the rehabilitation of the victims of politics." Under the head of the republic, a State Commission for the Protection of Rehabilitated Rights has been created and works. With its help in Mari El, many places of violence in captivity (zones of the Gulag, prisons, investigative insulators) were revealed, around which there were, as a rule, ineveled graveyards; On them, as in cities, dodgers are trying to build a business. Like, for example, in the village of Red Bridge. Either garden plots are allocated, as at the railway station Ozhe (in the 1970s, the Soviet authorities formed the Giant Givest Partnership on the Zone Pogost). Currently, the names of 16 thousand “fists” are not immortalized as victims of repression. It is easier to solve all such problems together.