IRKUTSK, Russia—For 20 years after discovering mass graves he lived in fear of being assassinated if Soviet authorities got word of them—the graves were evidence of a large massacre. Finally, as the shadow of communism began lifting in Russia, geologist Alexander Alexandrov shared his secret, a secret even Russian secret agents couldn’t uncover.
In the 1970s, Alexandrov and his family bought a house near the village of Pivovarikha in Southern Russia.
One day while talking with locals, they told him that on the outskirts of the village human remains had been found, and that children were playing soccer with a skull.
The locals said they believed the bones were part of larger graves in the area containing the bodies of executed political opponents.
Alexandrov, motivated by his own past—his grandfather had been shot by Soviet security forces and buried somewhere in the region in 1938—decided to try to find the graves.
He went through the area, talking with locals, and looking for clues in the local geography. Using principles of geomorphology—the study of the characteristics, origin, and development of landforms—he made his shocking discovery. He found burial sites containing human skulls and bones “buried at shallow depths,” he said.
Out of fear of reprisal if the communist regime learned of his find, Alexandrov decided to bury his gruesome discovery deep in himself.
“After that I hid and lived with fear,” says Alexandrov.
“I could have been killed by NKVD [People's Commissariat Internal Affairs], if I had blabbed about the burial place, which would have been considered a disclosure of evidence of a crime.”
It was not until some 20 years later, as the Soviet Union was starting to crumble, that Alexandrov saw news reports in the state-run media mentioning that some remains had been found.
The NKVD, the Soviet secret police, had become interested in finding the mass graves of the victims of political persecution. From the Irkutsk regional department, where Pivovarikha village was located, the NKVD formed a special taskforce of agents to carry out the operation.
The agents, however, failed to find the graves, leading people to use a phrase popular at the time against the department head: “Can’t you find the burial places? Then how are [you] going to catch spies?”
During this period, Alexandrov was chairman of the human rights movement called Memorial in Irkutsk. He was contacted by the NKVD.
The NKVD had a secret list of possible mass graves, but Pivovarikha was not among them. During discussions with the NKVD, Alexandrov told them about the graves he had found.
When his tip bore fruit, the NKVD asked Alexandrov how he knew about the grave.
“I could not tell the head of regional NKVD office that I had kept silent for 20 years fearing being killed by the service.”
Eventually, an investigation showed that about 17,000 people had been shot dead and buried in the graves in the village around 1937-1938.
In late 1989, local officials recognized the findings in Irkutsk and a memorial was commissioned. Today, the memorial stands incomplete and in dilapidated condition because of lack of financing.
