On the official Day in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression, up to fifty people gathered outside Severodvinsk to commemorate those who worked and died in the Yagrinlag camp complex, building what is now the second largest city in the Arkhangelsk Region.
On 31 July 1937 NKVD head Yezhov’s Secret Order 00447 (“the Kulak operation”) allocated the Karelian troika a quota of 300 to be shot and 700 sent to the camps. This marked the beginning of the Great Terror.
By the end of the Terror in November 1938 at least 10,779 people had been shot and buried in Karelia. (This total does not include the 1,111 prisoners from Solovki, shot at Sandarmokh between 27 October and 4 November 1937.) A further 1,410 were sent to the camps.
Continue readingAt present there is a lull in the judicial proceedings. His lawyer Victor Anufriev says that the case files for both of Dmitriev’s trials remain in Moscow with the Supreme Court.
On 19 October Anufriev challenged the decision of the Court not to examine the appeal he submitted on his client’s behalf in June this year. His challenge was sent to Vyacheslav Lebedev, chairman of the Supreme Court, and as a result the hearings in Petrozavodsk will not resume at least until 19 November.
“This would be the third time the Petrozavodsk City Court has issued a verdict,” commented Anufriev. “He has already been acquitted twice on these charges [making pornographic photos]. These days, especially, to acquit someone twice, to release him and then return the case for re-examination is unprecedented.”
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The Dmitriev Affair 