According to a Soviet document dated August 20, 1933, there were only 2,200 survivors out of the 6,700 prisoners who had been sent to Nazinsky, a low-lying, swampy strip some 3 kilometers long and about 600 meters wide.
So many, in fact, that locals came to call it Cannibal Island or the Island of Death.īy August, at least 4,000 people were dead or missing. Numerous gruesome incidents of cannibalism were reported. And still, additional barges continued to pull up at the island. Without tools or shelter or food and surrounded by armed guards who shot anyone who tried to brave the icy river, the prisoners quickly fell victim to starvation, disease, violence, and the brutal elements. At least 23 of the prisoners were already dead. Their dedication to the pilgrimage is part of an effort to remind fellow Russians of an experiment in social engineering and self-sufficiency that went tragically wrong for many of the "settlers" lured by Soviet authorities under Josef Stalin - whose brutal excesses have frequently been downplayed under Russia's current leadership in favor of a more forgiving historical interpretation of Stalin's three-decade rule.Įighty-five years ago in May, a small flotilla of lumber barges pulled up to Nazinsky Island and off-loaded about 3,000 "settlers" with orders to construct a "special settlement," as their little corner of Stalin's GULAG – the network of labor camps that spread across the Soviet Union where millions of people were repressed and killed - was euphemistically called. The water was too high, and the island is almost entirely flooded." "Every year in June, we place a wreath at the cross that was placed on the island in 1993," Valeria Shtatolkin told RFE/RL. It is a gesture of remembrance for the victims of the horrific events that unfolded there in the summer of 1933. TOMSK, Russia – Every year, a small group of locals travels the 550 kilometers northwest from this Siberian city to Nazinsky Island, in the middle of the Ob River, to place a wreath at the foot of a wooden cross.
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