Obskaya station (c)* Obsklag graves | Russia's Necropolis of Terror and the Gulag

Obskaya station (c)* Obsklag graves

Card

№89-01

Date of burial
1947-1950s [2002]
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Address
Yamalo-Nenets AO, Labytnangi, Obskoi settlement
Access outside a populated area
On foot
Comments
In the tundra 500 m from Obskaya rail station
Visiting Hours or Restrictions
Unrestricted
Type of burial
Camp (prison) burial ground
Reburial
Current use
Cultural and/or educational purposes
Excursions
Ceremonial events
Presence of memorials, etc.
Yes
Protected status
Not protected
Фотография 2004 года. Источник: Архив НИЦ «Мемориал»
Фотография 2004 года. Источник: Архив НИЦ «Мемориал»
Background

The camp at the Obskaya rail station was set up in late 1946 as a sub-division of Sevzheldorlag, becoming the 5th division of Obsklag after 1947. A subdivision of Obsklag (Construction site 501), responsible for building the railroad from Chum to Labytnangi, was also based there. In 1948-1952 brigade 202 of Obsklag, a zone where women who had given birth in captivity and the camp children’s home (for those aged under 7), was deployed near the station.

In 1947-1950 prisoners, children from the home, and free workers were all buried in coffins in a cemetery half a kilometre away. The burials were made in shallow graves; stakes bearing numbers were placed on the graves and in some cases wooden crosses. The cemetery does not have a clearly defined boundary; the graves were made close together.

All the camp sub-divisions closed in 1955. More than 600 graves, 250 of them children’s graves, were uncovered as a result of investigation in the late 1990s. In 2000 after a low fire in the tundra the lids of the coffins caught fire and the burials were exposed. In 2001 an expedition of the Labytnangi branch of the Yamalo-Nenets local history society, led by A.N. Safonov, reburied the remains exposed by the fire in a common grave in the children’s section of the cemetery. In 2002 the area was fenced off and tidied; grave-markers were placed on the new common graves. A memorial cross was erected with the inscription, “Remember them in your Kingdom, O Lord. Here lie children, the victims of repression in the 1950s”.

Books of Remembrance

No Book of Remembrance has been published for the Yamalo-Nenets AO. Information about inhabitants of the autonomous district who were shot or sent to the Gulag is included in the Tyumen Region Book of Remembrance.

Ceremonies
DateNature of ceremoniesOrganiser or responsible personParticipantsFrequency
nk
Commemorative Services
nk
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From time to time
Nature of area requiring preservation
State of burialsAreaBoundaries
The reburial is in good condition; some grave mounds have survived in the cemetery
More than 10 hectares
not delineated
Administrative responsibility and ownership, informal responsibility for the site
On land under the control of the Labytnangi urban district administration. The Labytnangi branch of the Yamalo-Nenets local history society has informal responsibility for the cemetery
Sources and bibliography

[ Original texts & hyperlinks ]

Archive of the Labytnangi district museum

89-01