Recovery mission in Kirov - Russia

[Ironcrown]

The memory of the Russian campaign is still like a bleeding wound for many european families that suffered losses in the snows of the chilly steppe.
Recently many of those have been found in huge mass graves in the vicinity of Kirov, 1000 kms east of Moskow. An industrial city on the Transiberian Railway, far away from the attack range of the axis bombers, it was a production centre of weapons and ammunition, such the famous Katyusha rockets, the PPSh submachine guns and the T34 tanks. Kirov was also an important health care centre, with many hospitals that healed both russian soldiers and prisoners of war to be employed in forced labour.

[Ironcrown]

Typhus, frostbite and malnutrition caused many deaths during the railroad travel to the labour camps. Deads were brought to the last wagons of the railroad trains; these were later unhooked nearby the mass graves where the russian peasants quickly buried the pows for fear of epidemics.

[Ironcrown]

Numbers about these improvised burials are really impressive: it was evaluated that inside the eight graves that have been reported should rest the remains of at least 10.000 men from many countries: Germany, Hungary, Belgium, Rumania, France, Norway, Italy…

[Ironcrown]

Investigations made by the russian authorities identified the exact location of three mass graves and took to the recovery of interesting relics, like the fragment of a dogtag belonged to Giulio Lazzarotti, an italian soldier of the “Julia” Alpine Division who died at the age of 22.

[Ironcrown]

The russian authorities have settled for an excavation, identification and recovery mission that will be operated by groups from many countries. Italy will be represented by the “Nort Apennines Po Valley Park” organization; a contact group visited Kirov last December for the necessary agreements. Depite the temperature at -30°C, the italian researchers inspected the site and left a votive candle in place to commemorate the deads.

[Ironcrown]

Further studies revealed that the healed prisoners were employed in hard works as lumberjacks, bricklayers, carpenters and so on. Many of those were able to make a family and decided to remain in Russia. The names were changed into russian ones and these men became part of the russian community to a so great extent, that even their sons ignored their past.
It’s clear that, due to the great number of bodies and the type of ground, the recovery mission will require a very professionally organized excavation site. The most advanced archeological procedures will be adopted in order to allow the identification of as many remains as possible.

As agreed with the russian authorities, the italian mission will be operative in the month of June with 2 groups of 12 volunteers each. If necessary, a third group will take part to the project in August. The volunteers are members of “Gotica Toscana Onlus”, of “Museo della Seconda Guerra Mondiale del fiume Po” of Felonica (both part of the NAPV) and of “Associazione Linea Gustav” .

[Ironcrown]

Here's a hungarian article (in english!) about these facts:

https://dailynewshungary.com/the-rem...-kirov-photos/

There's just a typing error about the distance from Moskow: it's not 100, but 1000 Kms!

[Ironcrown]

In order to help economically the volunteers, who will face anyway rather hard conditions, a crowdfunding has been launched.
For more informations and to contribute, even with low amounts, visit the site http://www.napv.it/missione-kirov/

At the moment the page is in italian only, but will be soon available in english too!

[Ironcrown]

I have written about the "italian" mission, but of course other countries will take part: at least german, hungarian and russian groups will be there in the same period.

Somebody has any news about these groups?

[Simon H]

A very noble cause, I wish them every success. Thanks for posting.

[Ironcrown]

So...
In the Summer 2017 two recovery missions took place, one led by the russian volunteer group "Dolg" with italian volunteers partecipation, and another led by the german's VDK. I can tell about the first one, as my association helped the russians in the research and I had the opportunity and the privilege to be there for ten days.
The mission allowed to identify the exact location of some of the cited graves, and during some (relatively) limited excavations around 300 bodies were found: italian, hungarian and german. Most of the fallens were italians and hungarians, while germans were a minority. Some dogtags were also found; the russian authorities will handle them according to law and will communicate to their counterparts abroad the informations about the identified soldiers. So I can't tell anything about this aspect.

The works were very hard because of the bad weather and the mud. The remains were highly concentrated: we had human bones for a depth of around 2 meters inside the grave. Unfortunately shortly after the burial in WW2 the grave was partially robbed, so (at least in the area that was examinated) the remains were mixed up and scattered. But going deeper in the ground the burials resulted unthouched, and good identifications could be done.

[Ironcrown]

To regard to the fallens, I will not post pictures that shows directly human remains, but I guarantee they were really many...
Italian and russian volunteers worked togheter really well, the only obstacle was the language. Fortunately a nice italian girl that lives in Kirov worked with us as translator and was of great help!

[Ironcrown]

Many artifacts were found, useful to identify at least the nationality of the bodies when they were lying close or attached to some remains.

[Ironcrown]

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[Ironcrown]

More pics to come tomorrow...