najuste on "The Vyatlag Archipelago"

najuste — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:57:02 +0100

The most terrible thing is that Russians still do not face up these facts, their reality is different. Russians living in this district (oblast in russian) are saying and believing that there were NO CAMPS. People came at those places just to work. And nobody want to say the truth. In fact they were get there to die.

Intelegent people, the middle and the upper class were sent there by force.. My grandmother, trying to avoid those trains, left her home beeing pregnant and was in hidding for half a year. Familly with two small childs moved 150 km away from there home... And much more terrible stories I heard, while we, childs, were doing interviews with people who came back from there., for a history lesson.

Now, in Lithuania, a new project is launched "Misija-Sibiras" - "Mision:Siberia". Young, selected people are going there to search in history. To search graveyards, villages.. In order to respect ancestors, theyo make an order in those graveyards. They mark them. By foot youngsters are traveling through those painfull lands full of signs already overgrow with weeds, bushes and even trees..

A galery from this mission: http://www.misijasibiras.lt/2008/?/GALERIJA/

Anthony Barnett on "Chronicle of a Pyrhhic victory"

Anthony Barnett — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:55:00 +0100

This is a fantastic story, of ordinary sadness and persitence - worth at least six stars. I laughed - but I could have cried - out loud at the episode of the guys charged for drinking while sitting in a car:
"The security guards called the STSI, who filed a report on driving a vehicle in an intoxicated state. In his defense, the owner of the car presented proof to the magistrate that his car was not only parked, but could not move of its own accord, as its drive shaft had been removed. However, the magistrate would not listen to these arguments. He took away the man's license for a year."

open Democracy News Analysis - Penal system - Comments

najuste on "The Vyatlag Archipelago"

Anthony Barnett on "Chronicle of a Pyrhhic victory"