Museum of memory of victims of political repression "Kolyma camps"

SERPANTINKA is the name of the place where mass executions of prisoners were carried out in the late 30s.

In the dead decay, between the hills, one and a half kilometers from the former center of the Northern Mining Administration, the village of Khatynakh, was this terrible place. A serpentine road ran through the pass. And a few 100 meters away, a barracks prison for those sentenced to death was located. They shot tractors doomed to the sound of their engines so that the shots could not be heard. The lifeless bodies were thrown into ditches and covered with earth.

In the second half of the 80s, this place, rich in gold deposits, began to conduct washing operations, that is, to extract precious metal. Along with the gold sands, human bones and bullets fell on the washing device. The miners categorically refused to work at this place, and the deposit was "preserved".

On June 22, 1991, a modest monument to all those who died in Kolyma during the years of terror was built on the site of the barrack prison. It was established by people who are not indifferent to the past: Svyatoslav Timchenko, Sergey Romanov, Anatoly Suzdaltsev, Alexander Fedchenko, Yuri Vishnyakov and other enthusiasts. Neither the district committee of the CPSU, nor the executive committee, which represented the official power at that time, took part in the construction of the monument.

The Museum of Remembrance of Victims of Political Repression was opened on October 30, 1994. On the day of the opening, many residents of Bergodny came to the museum. Currently, the archive of the museum has about four thousand photographs of former prisoners, veterans of Kolyma, remnants of camps, settlements, etc., etc. Three hundred exhibits - tools and objects of camp life of prisoners, their personal belongings, originals of cases, camp newspapers, drawings and paintings of prisoners made in camps, letters to relatives written from captivity. In working condition phone 1941 release, typewriter "Bashkiria" and camera "Photocor" release of the 30s, phonophone. Dozens of old records with the voices of Lenin, Stalin, Krupskaya, Kalinin, Lunacharsky and other statesmen of the past years. The museum has a library containing about 500 books on repression, war, history of the Magadan region and others. During the existence of the museum, not only Russians but also citizens of Poland, the USA, Italy, France, Germany, England visited it.