“I’m against war in general, it’s all politics”. How a memorial for victims of Stalin’s Great Purge turned into a political debate stage

The Sandarmokh forest in Karelia, one of Russia’s Northern regions, is the place of one of the largest mass graves of the victims of Stalin’s Great Purge. Since historians uncovered the site in the late 1990s, the remains of more than 6,000 people executed by the NKVD in 1937–1939 have been found here. On August 5, the International Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression, a memorial is held annually in Sandarmokh. This year, it drew up to a hundred participants, according to Mediazona’s estimates. About 40 instigators in homemade uniforms, balaclavas and Cossack hats tried to hinder them. As a result, the mourning event turned into an unexpected forest debate between supporters and opponents of the war against Ukraine. Here is Mediazona’s report.

“When we first arrived, almost no one was here. A real cemetery,” one of the memorial attendees told Mediazona. “Absolute silence, you couldn’t even hear birds or insects. With the arrival of people, that feeling completely disappeared. The forest turned into a place of political debate.”

Every year on August 5, the International Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression, people gather in the Sandarmokh forest near Medvezhegorsk, Karelia, to honor the memory of those who were executed there in 1937–1939.

This year, a few hours before the start of the event, four strangers in civilian clothes appeared in the forest, followed by two more in camouflage and Cossack hats, or papakhas. Eyewitnesses noticed that these men were communicating with each other over a radio. They also nailed provocative plaques to trees with photos and brief biographies of a Finn, a German, a Pole, and a Swede who allegedly fought for Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.

When asked why he was doing this, one of them bluntly answered that it was simple—he was a man “in the service”: “I am against war in general; it’s all politics.”

The plaque with the name of Fabian Emeling was printed out from Rybar, a pro-war Telegram channel and VK group, Mediazona found. A tabloid-style media Argumenty Nedeli wrote about the death of Edward Patriani, a Swede mentioned on another plaque.

One of the plaques disappeared from its tree and ended up in a trash can before the event began and most participants had arrived. It remains unknown who tore it off, but activists from the Young Guard of United Russia, a pro-Putin youth group, along with cameramen from state channels, grew interested in the story. They filmed the plaque, while people in camouflage told anyone willing to listen that the portraits of “foreign mercenaries” had been brought to Sandarmokh by the memorial’s own participants.

“Look what plaques these Soros-funded activists are putting up here!” was the main message of their comments.

By this time, the camouflage-clad crowd and members of the Young Guard had been joined by representatives of the “Russian Community” of Karelia, a far-right vigilante group, along with a group in black uniforms and balaclavas who called themselves the People’s Volunteer Druzhina (Squad). The nationalists walked through the forest with an imperial Russian flag.

At 11 a.m., people who came to honor the memory of the victims of political repression began to arrive. They laid flowers at the monuments to the dead and to the nations that suffered during the Great Purge.

The people in black uniforms, balaclavas, camouflage, and papakhas quickly languished in the heat and scattered, waiting for the diplomats’ arrival. By noon, a message came over the radio: “The delegation has arrived.” They immediately returned from the forest. It became clear who they were really waiting for.

Representatives of the embassies of Sweden, Finland, and Poland, as well as the German Consul General in St. Petersburg, arrived in Sandarmokh.

At their appearance, the masked nationalists became animated. They greeted the diplomats with shouts of “No to fascism! Victory will be ours! Forward, Russia! We are Russians—God is with us!” The German consul was specifically singled out, being called a fascist more than anyone else.

The nationalist crowd reacted mostly calmly to the laying of flowers. But when it was time to lay flowers at the cross in memory of the repressed Ukrainians, a command was sent over the radios to sing “Katyusha,” a patriotic Soviet-era song popular during WWII.

The nationalists were also concerned about the colour of the bouquets laid at the monuments to the executed Poles, Germans, and Finns.

“Here they are bringing yellow and blue flowers. It’s clear what they mean. Isn’t this a provocation? But we aren’t stopping them from laying flowers,” reasoned the activists of the People’s Volunteer Druzhina.

Indeed, the nationalists didn’t interfere with the laying of flowers, but when the memorial participants began to read out the names of the executed, members of the “Russian Community” of Karelia tried to shout them down: “Will you also go to the Donbas? Why don’t you say that Red Army soldiers were shot here too?” The druzhinniki from the People’s Volunteer Druzhina were particularly interested in how much the event’s participants had been “paid.”

Before the attendees began to read the names of those executed at Sandarmokh, a short lecture was given by historian Anatoly Razumov, head of the “Returned Names” center at the Russian National Library. He introduced himself as a “historian of Soviet-era atrocities” and a researcher of the Levashovo Memorial Cemetery, “another such site of atrocity in St. Petersburg.”

“Such places were specially organized in 1937 in view of the hitherto unprecedented plans of the party and government, which were handed down in July 1937 to every region of the Soviet Union,” the historian began.

After a few minutes Razumov was interrupted by one of the instigators.

“And what about the Finns shooting Red Army soldiers here?”

“Be quiet, please. Be quiet or go away!” the audience shouted at him.

“No Red Army soldiers were shot here. It’s a lie invented in recent years, and I testify to that as a historian.”

“You’re a historian?”

At this point, the instigator splashed one of the protesters with water from a bottle. “What a scumbag,” someone in the crowd said. Even the man’s companion pulled his arm, saying, “Stop it, stop it.” “Why isn’t he telling the whole truth!” the he tried to justify his actions.

“It’s stated very clearly that this is the burial place of the victims of political repressions of 1937-1939. It has a corresponding number in the state register and a state protection certificate. All that we have observed now, unfortunately, shows that the state protection of this tragic place is not being properly ensured,” said Karelian politician Emilia Slabunova, head of the Yabloko faction in the region’s legislature. Slabunova noted that “the memorial sites for victims of the Finnish occupation are officially recognized sites, and they have their own protected status.”

“I have ancestors who died here too,” said a man who identified himself as a Cossack. According to him, he takes care of the memorial stone to the Cossacks killed in Sandarmokh.

Another participant claimed this year’s commemoration has turned into a cacophony of “political squabbles.”

“It’s peculiar that almost everyone present today recognises as a fact that the victims of Stalin’s terror are buried here,” he told Mediazona.

The smallest group at the action in Sandarmokh turned out to be those nostalgic for the USSR—and they participated in the improvised “debates” as well. The activists of the Voluntary People’s Druzhina argued with them.

The activists of the “Young Guard” and the crews of federal channels who joined them were most interested in the number of people executed. They approached the gathering with the question, “How many people do you think were shot here?” And they insisted that historian Yuri Dmitriev’s data about the victims of Sandormokh were exaggerated “seven times.”

Yuri Dmitriev was one of the leaders of the search operations that led to the discovery of mass graves in Sandormokh. Since 2016, he has been prosecuted under various charges, accused of weapons possession, lewd acts and production of “pornography” because of the photos of his adopted daughter, which he took for the guardianship authorities. The courts found Dmitriev not guilty several times. Finally, in 2021, the 65-year-old historian was sent to a high-security prison for 15 years on the fourth attempt.

People in camouflage, papakhas and with their faces covered were more concerned with questions of geopolitics: why do representatives of “enemy states” come to visit Karelia during the war? “They already have the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repressions on October 30. Why are they coming here in August?” people in uniforms and balaclavas were outraging.

They shuttled around the cemetery, kept a close eye on the participants of the memorial event and tried to reprimand an elderly couple who were screwing a memorial sign to a tree. The gray-haired man irritably replied: “Don’t tell me what to do, I’m a retired Interior Ministry officer!” People in camouflage could not find the words to object to him.

The most aggressive group, according to eyewitnesses, were representatives of the “Russian Community” of Karelia. “We haven’t come here before, but have you seen what they organised here during the war? They come with these flags, they organise self-expression here. They make an event and receive opposition,” the instigators tried to explain, adding that ”this is just the beginning, and it will only get worse from here on.”

In their opinion, activists from the Memorial human rights group and foreigners are “appropriating our memory.”

Editor: Dmitry Tkachev