Kazakhstan commemorates victims of '30s hunger and political repressions

May 31 is the day of memory of hunger and political repression victims in Kazakhstan.

In 1997, Kazakhstan's president Nursultan Nazarbayev signed a relevant decree to pay tribute to the victims of political repressions.

Over one and a half million people were deported to Kazakhstan during the Red Terror under the Stalinist Soviet Union in 1930s - 102,000 Poles, 19,000 Korean families and 507,000 people from the Caucasus were displaced to the Kazakh steppes.

Over 103,000 people were repressed in Kazakhstan itself, of which more than 25,000 were executed by shooting, among them prominent Kazakh cultural and political figures Shakarim Kudaiberdiyev, Akhmet Baitursynov, Myrzhakyp Dulatov, Mukhamedzhan Tynyshpayev, Magzhan Zhumabayev, Sanzhar Asfendiyarov, Oraz Dzhandossov, Turar Ryskulov, Saken Seifullin, Ilyas Dzhansugurov, Beyyimbet Mailin and Sultanbek Hodzhayev.

Since 1937, the beginning of the purge, Kazakhstan hosted 953 camps and settlements, including ALJIR - Akmolinski Lager Jen Izmennikov Rodiny - the Aqmola Camp for Motherland Traitors' Wives, Karlag - Karaganda Camp, where Lev Gumilev, Anatoli Marchenko, Mariya Kapnist, Anna Timireva, Aleksander Chizhevsky, Pyotr Shmarin and many others served terms.

On April 14, 1993, Kazakhstan adopted a law on rehabilitation of victims of mass political repressions, justifying nearly 350,000 people.

IA Novosti-Kazakhstan