The Kochmes camp outpost, a branch of Sevpechlag, was created in 1940 (in 1950 it became part of Pechorlag). The infirmary was located on the right side of the Vorkuta-Moscow Railroad, next to the Lazaretny stream and the cemetery was somewhere outside its territory.
According to A. Zakidalskaya, a former prisoner at the outpost, the dead were buried in mass graves and posts with boards bearing several surnames were placed on the graves. The numbers buried there has not been determined. Local residents recall that people were buried in “the old cemetery” until 1957.
Today the area is boggy, and overgrown with bushes, birch and small fir trees; the traces of the subsided graves can hardly be detected.
Repentance: the Komi Republic Martyrology of the Victims of Mass Political Repression (11 vols. 1998-2016), includes biographical entries on 52,785 who were sent to the camps in Komi, of whom over 10,000 died there.
Drawing on various sources the database lists 225 prisoners who were held in Sevpechlag of whom eight are recorded as dying in captivity. (And see The Gulag in Northwest Russia, 1931-1960.)
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
|---|---|---|
|
subsidence over graves (1 x 1.5 m to 2.5 x 3.5 m); large individual graves have been identified and wooden stakes
|
about 1.2 hectares
|
not delineated
|
[ Original texts & hyperlinks ]
Recollections of V.V. Bazhutin (2002), recorded by V.A. Aduyeva – Archive of the Inta district museum
Recollections of G.S. Murashko (2002), recorded by V.A. Aduyeva – Archive of the Inta district museum
N. Alexeyenko, “The Kochmes project”, Iskra, tvoya gorodskaya gazeta, 16 July 2005
Ye. Vladimirova, “Three days in Kochmes”, Iskra, tvoya gorodskaya gazeta, 10 November 2005
*
Reply from the Inta urban district administration (№ 09/8359 of 25 June 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
