According to the weather forecast, it will be warm and rainy today in Moscow, 4-5 degrees Centigrade. “So wrap up well, put on boots and a raincoat, and take an umbrella with you,” suggests Memorial to the hundreds of people intending to take part in the “Restoring the Names” ceremony on Moscow’s Lubyanka Square.

In January 1934 the head and founder of the Soviet Meteorological Service, ALEXEI WANGENHEIM (1881-1937), was arrested and charged with “counter-revolutionary sabotage” in the organisation he had created. He spent the last three years of his life on Solovki before being shot, at this time of year, with the rest of the “missing” Solovki transport.

Wife and husband; daughter and mother; prison photos

The last resting place of Wangenheim (Vangengeim) and his comrades in misfortune was not established until almost sixty years later, when Yury Dmitriev, Irina Flige and Venyamin Joffe found the killing fields of Sandarmokh, early in July 1997.