In December 1941 a division of Pechzheldorlag (Pechstroi, after 1950 Pechorlag) was set up at the Kozhva station on the North Pechora railroad. Prisoners who died were buried on the left bank of the Pechora river in the south part of Kozhva. In 1941-1942 they were buried in common graves. In 1943 a plot of land was set aside and fenced off for use as a cemetery. Thereafter, it seems, the dead were buried in coffins and in individual graves.
In 1961 after the camp closed inhabitants of Kozhva were buried for several more years in the cemetery. In the 1970s it was no longer in use and by 1979 a large part of its territory was given over to the growing of vegetables or building. In 1991 the settlement administration decided to clear and fence off the remaining part of the cemetery. (Subsequently the fence disappeared.)
On 22 June 1991 a memorial was placed there to commemorate the prisoners who had built the Northwest Railroad and the bridge over the Pechora river. The inscription reads, “In memory of the tragic events that affected human lives during the war and in peacetime construction”.
The Memorial online database (2025) lists 129,473 victims in the Komi Republic. (See Nizhny Chov.)
It names almost 55,000 sent to the camps in Komi, where over 10,000 died: most were convicted in 1936-1940, including 7,977 who subsequently died in captivity.
Drawing on the Komi Book of Remembrance and other sources the Memorial online database (2025) names 105 prisoners held in Pechorlag in the 1930s and 1940s, where 24 are recorded as dying. (And see The Gulag in Northwest Russia, 1931-1960.)
| Date | Nature of ceremonies | Organiser or responsible person | Participants | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
30 Oct.
|
Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression
|
Kozhva cultural centre together with school
|
Local officials, teaching staff and schoolchildren
|
Annual event
|
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
|---|---|---|
|
several graves, grave mounds have survived; subsidence over burials
|
cemetery covered approximately 3 hectares; about 200 sq m preserved
|
partially delineated
|
[ original texts and hyperlinks ]
A calendar of anniversaries, memorable and important dates for the Kozhva municipal district in 2011, Pechora inter-district library, Pechora, 2010 (56 pp)
“Materials of the Stalker group regional expeditions”, Archive of the Pokayanie Museum
*
“Kozhva settlement. Cemetery of Pechorzheldorlag prisoners”, The Virtual Museum of the Gulag [retrieved, 26 May 2022; no longer accessible]
Reply from Pechora urban district administration (No 01-14-6229 of 7 July 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
