Last Saturday some of my friends had to line up for four to five hours to take part in this year’s remembrance ceremony for the victims of the Soviet terror. Initiated by the activist group Memorial, the event is an annual gathering at which people recite the names of those killed in the purges and extralegal executions that took place in the Soviet Union between the 1920s and the early 1950s.
We were smart enough to come early and had to brave Moscow’s drizzle and snow for only about an hour. Anyone joining the line received a piece of paper with two names and some basic information about the individuals. “Theodor Yulianovich Gallai, 32 years old, head of communications support at Glavenergo, shot on December the 10th, 1937,” was the information provided for one of the names I received; the names are distributed in alphabetical order.
