In the 1930s and 1940s inhabitants of North Sakhalin who were condemned to death by the NKVD were shot near the Verkhny Armudan settlement. Formerly an agricultural area for a team of border guards, the settlement was transformed into a concentration camp. The location of the burials was determined from documents in KGB archives, extensive oral testimony and the recollections of former prisoners.
The search for the burials in the Tymovsky district was led in the late 1980s by KGB colonel V.K. Tsvetkov and after 1990 by V.Ya. Golubets, director of the Search club. The burials were found in summer 1990 southwest of the former settlement. 65 common graves measuring 5 x 5 metres were found, according to Gorobets, and one grave of 10 x 10 metres; some of the remains were charred, suggesting that the bodies of those executed were buried. In 1991 the burial site received official status as a cemetery of the victims of political repression. In 2005 a memorial was erected on the 21st kilometre of the road from Tymovskoe to Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky to inhabitants of Sakhalin who were the victims of political repression.
A Book in Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression in the Sakhalin Region (9 vols. 1996-2009) contains biographical entries on 6,200 who were shot or sent to the Gulag and individual volumes devoted to Koreans (vol. 2) and Kalmyks (vols. 6 & 8) deported to Sakhalin.
| Date | Nature of ceremonies | Organiser or responsible person | Participants | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
30 October
|
Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression
|
Tymovsky district administration
|
Administration and public of Tymovsky district and other parts of Sakhalin
|
Annual event
|
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
|---|---|---|
|
Characteristic subsidence is observable
|
not determined
|
not delineated
|
[ original texts and hyperlinks ]
V.Ya. Gorobets, “Sakhalin’s Kuropaty”, Local history bulletin, 1990, Issue 3
Decision No 401 (13 August 1991) of the Tymovsky district soviet executive committee: recognise Verkhny Armudan as an official cemetery of the victims of political repression in the 1930s and 1940s – RIC Memorial archive (St Petersburg)
Decree No. 107-pa (4 September 2002) of the Sakhalin Region Administration “On a memorial to Sakhalin’s victims of political repression”, Administration website
Ye. Averin, “The Tragedy of Verkhny Armudan”, RIA Sakhalin-Kurily, 12 July 2012 [retrieved, 28 May 2022]
Ye. Gertsen, “Verkhny Armudan, on the track of history”, Sakhalin Info, 3 August 2012 [retrieved, 28 May 2022]
L.O. Petri, V.T. Petri, “Taymyrsky Bygones”, Krasnoyarsk Memorial society website
“Memorials to victims of political repression in the former USSR: A database”, Sakharov Museum & Information Centre, Moscow [retrieved, 28 May 2022]
“Verkhny Armudan settlement. Execution and burial site”, Virtual Museum of the Gulag [retrieved, 28 May 2022]
Reply from the Tymovsky municipal district administration (№ 640 of 14 May 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
