Russian historian and museum director, Sergei Koltyrin, has been sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment in a trial held behind closed doors. Although the charges are apparently ‘non-political’, Koltyrin is the second historian of the Soviet Terror to face a similar indictment. Both he and recognized political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev stood in the way of Russian attempts to rewrite history about Sandarmokh, a clearing in Karelia which holds the mass graves of thousands of Russians, Ukrainians, and others killed during the worst years of the Terror.
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This photo shows Karelian historian, Sergei Koltyrin.
