Special settlement No 13 (Veryuzhskoe Lake) was organised in the 1930s by dekulakized peasant families, deported from various parts of Russia. By 1940 the inhabitants had been transferred to another location and from March that year onwards Polish forced settlers from the Lvov Region (Ukraine) and the Baranovich Region (Belorussia) moved into the vacated barracks. On 1 January 1941 there were 907 individuals (167 families) registered in settlement No 13. There is evidence that about one hundred people were buried in the settlement graveyard; historian T.F. Melnik has compiled a list of their names.
Today trees have grown throughout the graveyard, name plates have been lost and in 2009 a fragment of one Catholic cross on a grave survived. In 2006, local businessman A.A. Kulakov erected an Orthodox cross there and in 2009, together with a delegation from Tarnow (Poland), he placed a Catholic cross in the graveyard. A board is fixed to the cross, dedicated to the memory of the family of Jozsef Mac and all Poles who died in exile in 1940 and 1941.
| Date | Nature of ceremonies | Organiser or responsible person | Participants | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
nk
|
Commemorative Services
|
nk
|
nk
|
From time to time
|
| State of burials | Area | Boundaries |
|---|---|---|
|
trees have taken over the cemetery and no grave-markers have survived
|
not determined
|
not delineated
|
[ Original texts & hyperlinks ]
T.F. Melnik, “A Memorial Cross in a Polish graveyard”, Ustyansky krai, 14 May 2009 (№ 51)
T.F. Melnik, “Polish burials in the Arkhangelsk Region”, Rodacy [Compatriots], 2010, № 1 (50)
A. Dembovska, The Poles in the Russian North: An album of Polish sites of remembrance, St Petersburg, 2011 (193 pp)
*
“Cemetery of the Veryuzhskoe lake special settlement”, Virtual Museum of the Gulag [retrieved, 28 May 2022]
Reply from the Ustyansky department for culture, sport, tourism & youth (20 March 2014) to a formal enquiry by RIC Memorial (St Petersburg)
