Special settlement No 9 (Churga) existed throughout the 1940s and came under the Velsk commandant. 87 Polish families were deported here in February 1940 from territory taken over by the USSR. The cemetery was one kilometre north of the settlement, along the Great Churga river. The total numbers buried there have not been established; the names of 35 Polish deportees who died in Churga between March 1940 and September 1941 are known. Among the inhabitants of neighbouring villages this cemetery is referred to as the “Polish” graveyard.
In the 2000s trees were felled in the area and the burials suffered as a result. Today the cemetery is overgrown with young saplings. In August 2012 the area was studied by a group of explorers: A. Mukhorin from Velsk; G. Veryovkin, director of the district museum; and Moscow researcher S. Zwierzinski. They found grave mounds, subsidence in the ground over burials. A dilapidated grave railing and a cross with an indecipherable inscription had survived.
State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
---|---|---|
Characteristic subsidence of topsoil
|
Not defined
|
Not delineated
|
[ Original texts & hyperlinks ]
Polish deportees in the Arkhangelsk Region: A database compiled by the Information Centre of the region’s Internal Affairs department (Memorial REC, Moscow, 1997)
“The Churga special settlement”, In the North forum, 6 February 2012
*
“Churga special settlement cemetery”, Virtual Museum of the Gulag [retrieved, 27 May 2022]