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PRESIDENT PUTIN HONOURS MEMORY OF STALIN REPRESSIONS' VICTIMS

NORILSK, March 22, 2002 /from a RIA Novosti correspondent/-- Vladimir Putin honoured the memory of the Stalin repression's victims. In the course of his working visit to Norilsk (an industrial centre beyond the polar circle) the Russian president laid flowers and honoured with one minute of silence the memory of "Norillag's" /a concentration camp/ victims. Many people had been repressed and sent to this severe land in Stalin's epoch. It was them who gave the origin to Norilsk. Very few of them survived and returned to the "mainland", as the locals call the other Russian territories due to their own geographical "detachment".

The decision to unveil a monument to political prisoners in Norilsk was taken in 1988. In 1990, a cross was fixed and shortly after that an Orthodox chapel consecrated on the Schmidt hill, the highest point of the city.

In 1991 the three Baltic States' delegations fixed memorial plates in honour of their compatriots who had been sent to "Norillag" and left buried in the frozen land of Norilsk.

In 1994 the City Council contributed to the creation of the memorial to victims of political repressions.

A three-bell belfry was set up on the Schmidt hill in July 2001.