(see 24 November update, below) “Putin has given the children of Karelia not a summer camp or a sanatorium (none remain in the republic), nor a polyclinic for children -- not one has been built during the past 20 years -- but a concentration camp,” writes Emilia Slabunova, Yabloko deputy in the Karelian republic’s legislative … Continue reading A concentration camp for Karelia’s children
Finland*
Finnish archive rejects Russia’s “new hypothesis”
Soviet prisoners of war were not buried in Sandarmokh, according to information held by Finland’s National Archive. Recently it has been asserted in Russia that hundreds of Soviet POWs, executed by the Finns during the Continuation War (1941-1944), were buried at Sandarmokh in eastern Karelia (the Republic of Karelia in the Russian Federation). The Russian … Continue reading Finnish archive rejects Russia’s “new hypothesis”
Barbaric excavations again under way at Sandarmokh
New excavations are underway at the Sandarmokh Clearing in Karelia which holds the last remains of thousands of victims of the Great Terror of 1937-1938, writes Halya Coynash. Any pretence that the excavations by a body linked to the Russian Minister of Culture are not aimed at rewriting history has been dispelled by a letter … Continue reading Barbaric excavations again under way at Sandarmokh
Were 2018 excavations at Sandarmokh legal?
As the prosecution continues to present its evidence of "new offences" by Yury DMITRIEV at his second trial in the Petrozavodsk City Court in Karelia, a related dispute is being pursued at the national level over the identity of those executed and buried at Sandarmokh. In early February, the Kommersant daily newspaper reported on this … Continue reading Were 2018 excavations at Sandarmokh legal?
Memory Wars?
A lengthy article about the POW execution theory in Russia’s Kommersant newspaper (7 September 2018) is even-handed and thorough. It needs little more than the following passage, however, to show the "new hypothesis of Karelian historians" for what it is: “Officially, there is no data to show that the Finns carried out mass executions at … Continue reading Memory Wars?
The Dmitriev Affair 