Text taken from a dzen.ru post by A Stepanov
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
There is not a lot of information on this tragedy, either in Russian media or anti Russian/anti Soviet media, past or present. What I can piece together is that 53 children, the offspring of several unidentified dissidents, victims of Russian style vigilance, were either killed or exiled to Siberia during Stalin's reign and then died.
It appears that the tragedy was the result of stupid actions by the sanatorium's caretaker.
[ColonelCassad] Today I am reading the Christmas message of Metropolitan Konstantin of Petrozavodsk and Karelia, in which he lists all the achievements of the local diocese. And I came across this:
"And on the 70th anniversary of the fire that took the lives of 53 children of "enemies of the people", a church in honor of the infant martyrs of Bethlehem was founded at the site of the tragedy in the Ulmalakhti tract of the Pyatkyaranta district."
I wrote about this story a long time ago, here is my old post on Vkontakte. But I will repeat myself.
The propaganda "promotion" of this sad story began with a post from a Karelian liberal public page, which is run by Ms. Smirnova. She served in the governor's press service for many years, and then miraculously turned into a zealous oppositionist.
A post about a real tragedy. Moreover, all the publications repeat quotes from this short text, without any documentary evidence. So:
"In the town of Ulmalahti on the shore of Lake Yanisyarvi in ​​the Pitkyaranta district in the post-war period there was an orphanage for young children of the repressed. They were from 3 to 7 years old...".
In fact, there is no information that this was a special home specifically for such children (near the Finnish border!!!). Moreover, after the war there were enough orphans, even especially gifted citizens should guess about this. Photos of this house from the 30s can easily be found on the Internet. It was built under the Finns, and at that time this building housed a Finnish sanatorium!
A sanatorium, you understand! So, this building was special, built in a good place, and not somewhere in a swamp. That is, in the difficult post-war time it was specially given over to the "children of enemies of the people"? If so, then this is a sign of the exceptional humanity of the Soviet government.
***
"The caretaker Sirotinin locked the boarding school building together with the children and teachers at night to prevent escape. And then one night there was a fire."
Can a 5-year-old child escape at night? Where and why? Most likely, the stupid caretaker hung a lock solely to prevent theft. Moreover, it turns out that two teachers were among the dead. Why would they run? On the contrary, they would have prevented any child from escaping. Are you, gentlemen, logical?
***
"The court sentenced the caretaker to 7 years in prison. Three years later, he was released and disappeared into the vast expanses of the Soviet Union."
That's right, he fell under the amnesty. The amnesty of 1956 is good, after all, these were innocent people imprisoned under Tirana who were freed. Or is it? Can anyone explain this logically?
***
"The children and two teachers were buried next to the burnt-down orphanage. Local residents erected a simple monument on the mass grave and planted flowers there..."
And where is the story that after this, those who planted flowers on the grave of the "children of the enemies of the people" were taken to the terrible MGB? Well, if you completely ignore logic and common sense and go all the way, you need to write something like that! They didn't do a good job...
Although the last episode is further proof that in this terrible tragedy, which happened because of the stupidity of one person, ordinary children died, without any political overtones. That's why there is a monument and flowers.
But there are people who really want to cynically use this terrible story for political and propaganda purposes. They have completely lost their conscience...
(c) A. Stepanov
Well, how can you not expose the "bloody tyrant Stalin"...