The famous local historian Anatolis Smilingis died in Komi

In Komi, at the 94th year of his life, the local historian and historian Anatolis Sminding, one of the last prisoners of the Gulag in the republic, died. This was announced by human rights activist Igor Sazhin.

Anatolis Smilingis was born in 1927 in independent Lithuania, in the city of Plung, in a family of teachers. In 1940, the country was occupied by Soviet troops according to the Molotov -Ribbentrop Pact. In June 1941 , together with thousands of other Lithuanians, the Sminki family was deported.

Father soon died in a camp near Krasnoyarsk. The mother of the 14-year-old Anatolis and his younger sister Rita, along with the children, ended up in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. They were called special settlers, but in fact they were the same prisoners as the usual prisoners of the Gulag - they ended up in the territory of the huge Locchimlaga in 1940, in the special settlement of the second section. (About his camp experience , Anatolis Smilingis told the correspondent of the Sever. Reali of the North Julia Kulikova.) Smilingis's mother died in 1943: she was sent to the camp to the north of Syktyvkar from the special settlement for bringing the children a couple of handfuls of oats from the stable. Anatolis from the age of 14 worked on the forestry.

The sister of Anatolis Rita managed to return to Lithuania, his brother remained to live in the village of Cortekeros. He, like his parents, became a teacher. For more than 40 years, Anatolis headed the house of pioneers in Corteraz, took schoolchildren on campaigns, put memorable signs. Together with his wife Lyudmila Koroleva, he was engaged in historical tourism for more than half a century, looking for secret burials of the repressed and established memorial crosses.