Mass burials of the executed on the outskirts of Vladivostok at the Sedanka Pass were well-known to local historians and members of the Memorial Society. From the early 1990s onwards, they made fruitless attempts to reach agreement with the authorities to carry out exploratory work there. In 1991, a memorial with a commemorative plaque was installed thanks to the efforts of Memorial. (The plaque reads, “To those tormented and shot during the years of [[Stalinist]] repression, 1920-1950, from the inhabitants of the Primorsky Krai …” The word ‘Stalinist’ was later erased.)
Only when work began late in 2009 on the Sedanka-Patrokl Highway were human remains found in large quantities. These were reburied the following year in the Lesnoe Cemetery [25-02]. Historians believe that several thousand executed victims may have been buried at the Sedankinsky Heights.
A Book in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression in the Primorsky Krai, 1920s-1950s (1 vol. 2014, 456 pp) is available online.
The Great Terror in the Primorsky Krai, 1937-1938 (two books, 2015) is available online: Part 1, First Category Arrests: Those shot (858 pp); Part 2, Second Category Arrests: Those sent to the camps (522 pp).
State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
---|---|---|
have not survived
|
human remains exhumed from a plot of land about 3 hectares in extent
|
not delineated
|
[ original texts and hyperlinks ]
“In Vladivostok they are reburying the remains of victims of Stalin’s Terror, discovered during road construction”, HRO.org, 13 April 2010 [retrieved, 27 May 2022]
“Builders in Vladivostok will find several more mass burials on their path”, PrimeMedia.ru, 17 April 2010 [retrieved, 27 May 2022]
“The remains of victims of repression found in Vladivostok will be reburied”, RIA Novosti, 16 April 2010
“Corpses on the road”, Vzglyad business newspaper, 15 July 2010 [retrieved, 27 May 2022]
“A row has broken out over human remains”, Vek, electronic paper, 1 November 2010 [retrieved, 27 May 2022]
“Sedanka Pass. Execution burial site in Vladivostok”, Virtual Museum of the Gulag [retrieved, 27 May 2022]
Reply from Vladivostok City administration (№3220D of 10 April 2014) to an enquiry from RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)