This is a tribute to my father, Albert Georgijev, and this is dedicated to keeping his story alive.
He was born in 1924 in Niiskovitsa, a Finnish village in rural Ingria Oblast, west of St Petersburg, Russia.
On week days he attended elementary school with his sister Salme and returned weekends. Later he laboured with his father on their farm. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until as a 14 year old he began to feel a sense of unease in the community.
A series of colourful propaganda posters appeared stoking invective against Ingrian Finns. These visuals unequivocally blamed a certain class (Kulaks) for the economic and agrarian slump across the USSR. In other communities there were demonstrations demonising non-Russians and non-Russian culture. Thus, Finns, amongst others, became a target of hate.
The only solution was to remove the Kulaks; agitators called for dekulakisation: the death of an entire class!
In the dark years that followed Albert witnessed at first hand the gross humiliation of his parents: Vassili and Aliide.
1930s: Life for the family is about to change. The full force of Stalin's Marxist agenda is about to decimate the Ingrian-Finnish villages west and north of St Petersburg. Aliide by this time had lost two of her children and with growing uncertainty about the future had to deal with the prospect of losing her home, and livelihood.
She was an Ingrian 'Finn', a targeted non-Russian ethnic group, and secondly, she was known to regularly attended church despite State enforced mandatory atheism.
Aliide was in turn concerned for her parents, Madis and Maarja, given their large farm and status.
Madis and Maarja met in St Petersburg and married in 1884 in a Lutheran church. They lived temporarily in a converted sauna-haus in the Finnish village of Markuse whilst Madis built what my aunt Salme described as a 'fine house'. Surplus dairy produce and horse-feed was taken to markets in Gatchina and St Petersburg and over time this became a prosperous household.
Madis worked very long hours in the field but all contributed to the farm's upkeep and on marrying each daughter received farmland, livestock and furniture.
As for Aleksander, he sent his wife and two children to live in Sweden. Details of his story would be most welcome.
Aliide (Albert's mother), was one of five children brought up in Markuse.
Aliide was a skilled seamstress. She had trained in Narva, Estonia, whilst staying with relatives and left vowing to return. Salme and Albert remembered their mother telling them how much she liked Estonia and promised that she would take them there one day
Aliide was the proud owner of a sewing machine and provided a service of tailoring and repairing cloth. Albert was able to recall with fondness the 'clickety-click' of the machine and soon learnt how to sew. Decades later I realised his socks seemed to last decades; they were repeatedly darned!
Albert's father, Vassili Georgijev, was an orphan raised by a Finnish widow in Niiskovitsa village, Ingria. There is an absence of details regarding his background and the Bulgarian surname a mystery. All requests to Russian authorities re ancestry have been ignored.
Vassili's farm ensured a degree of self-sufficiency in that he was able to feed his family on what he managed to produce from the farm. He was not rich but was well organised and had a good heart.
Albert's father Vassili, Russian born, owned about only eight acres of land and under the new regime that could label you as "an enemy of the people".
Officials came to assess the Markuse farmhouse and soon found Madis and Maarja guilty of living the life of 'Kulaks'.
The Noole family were duly stripped of all they owned and ordered to be deported by train to Siberia. However, on the day they were due to be collected for the trip to Gatchina railway station they went missing. Despite a search of the nearby forest they could not be found.
Madis and Maarja were aged and both envisaged huge problems in travelling. Knowing that they were probably not robust enough to survive the journey to Siberia in a bare freight wagon they simply decided to not comply and to face the consequences of this decision.
The punishment for avoiding deportation on the face of it seemed to be lenient: yes, they were duly evicted from Markuse and forfeited everything but their exile was to nearby Volosova with a strict limitation as to their movement which doesn't seem to have been policed given furtive visits to friends and family. It is possible that they were helped by certain uncommitted officials who were open to inducements.
Vassili being Russian expected to be able to continue farming but local Stalinist officialdom deemed that he had too much land. The land, the livestock and all stored grain were taken from him although he and his family were allowed to continue living in their house.
In 1931 family life became even more difficult for the family when the front part of their home was reappropriated as a 'Collective' shop which sold farm produce and vodka. Although there was a country-wide shortage of food the collective shop was well stocked with State vodka. Plentiful vodka, and access to the family's rooms must have compromised the safety of Aliide and her daughters.
When intruders found their way into the house under the guise of the sewing machine being used illegally an altercation ensued with Aliide and her children combining to prevent its removal. The sewing machine was an essential asset to the household. Following that incident the local authority assented to the family moving to the vacated Markuse house of Aliide's parents. In the years of relative peace that followed two more children, Lonni (Leontiina) and Maria, were born.
In order to up-root non-Russian culture all school instruction had to switch to Russian only whilst religion was targeted violently. The education of Albert and younger sister Salme effectively ended and Aliide's faith could only expressed covertly.
Under the political appointment of farm overseers agricultural yields across the country fell significantly despite government investment in mechanisation. When a famine (Holodomor) was declared in 1932. The State response was to make fields longer by clearing rural homesteads.
The family were evicted from the farm-house carrying essential bedding and clothing whilst furniture and timbers were taken by opportunist onlookers before the house was totally flattened.
The family of seven relocated to a nearby barn for three weeks until a Finnish family accommodated them as best they could in a small house! My father remembered the experience of trying to find floor space to sleep.
Vassili found another home before the Winter of 1938. After a severe Winter they moved yet again in Spring of 1941 to 30km north to Vitino close to a Russian Air Force (VVS) base. Both Albert and Meeta found regular paid work at the base but within four months German planes appeared and bombarded the area damaging runways and engineering sheds.
When the bombing intensified the family left Vitino for the safety of nearby woodland. Vassili settled the family down alongside an embankment.
After a few days a Russian patrol discovered them and ordered them to move out of the woods. Vassili as a Russian citizen would have been able to convince the patrol leader that they were Russian displaced persons seeking safety.
Vitino remained unsafe and the family were vulnerable. To the west about 100km away lay Narva, Estonia, to the east, much closer, St Petersburg, now Leningrad, and here Vassili had good friends who would provide shelter.
Getting ready to travel east Vassili was shocked to see families in distress returning from Leningrad. The chilling news that the city was under seige and that people were starving ruled out that option. They had no choice other than to aim to go west to Narva. First, the family returned to the forest hideout for safety. Here they managed to live undiscovered for two weeks just miles from the front with Russian forces losing ground and destroying everything they left behind.
Albert recalled a morning in hiding that stayed fixed in his memory. He and his sisters had been woken early by his mother, told to be quiet and to stand outside. They were clearly being watched from the embankment above. Silhouetted and silent, figures stood still and couldn't be identified. Anxious about a Russian reprisal for ignoring the order to leave the family were relieved that the oncoming soldiers were a mix of Germans and Estonians.
Albert was able to recall his mother taking the lead on this occasion speaking Estonian, boiling water for these armed men to make hot drinks. Offering some provisions individuals in this infantry unit demonstrated an unexpected kinship that registered with Albert.
The leading officer directed the family to a checkpoint to obtain clearance papers in order to proceed west undetained.
NOTE: The writer emphasises that this account is based on the experience of one man, my father Albert. At this time he would not have been aware of the atrocities committed in Narva by the German militia, Einsatzgruppe A. Indeed, no 'Estonian' division was ever associated with war crimes or atrocities recorded.
By mid-March 1942 fighting had eased: German troops had taken over most of the area although Russsian aircraft continued attacking German positions.
In a silent and unearthly setting many homes and stores throughout the area were empty or damaged. Standing aloft and alone was a deserted old Romanov style manor house in which the two parents and seven children took refuge.
With a travel pass to Narva secured by Aliide the family began their long trek. At this point it's worth pointing out that although Aliide's security was more secure because of the German-Estii link her husband Vassili was now relatively less secure given his Russian nationality and the frequent German military checkpoints.
Albert was particularly good with the horse, ensuring it had ample time to graze and recover and taking care that hooves were clear of stones. Early on the morning of the 22nd March 1942 he hitched up the horse to the loaded wagon for the last time. The destination was Narva, the first Estonian town across the border.
The journey took four days. Nights were spent alongside the road. Meagre rations went first to the children but all were under-nourished, weak, and exhausted.
Albert did his best to encourage their ailing horse forward whilst Aliide maintained a constant vigilance over the children. It is estimated that they covered 25km per day.
Advancing German units presented few problems to refugees, mainly Estonians and Finns desperately trying to get away from Russian rule. The persecution of Baltic nationalities served to unite them in their loss and in their enmity toward Stalin.
Estonia had become a safe refuge for persecuted Finns and Estonians because Russian troops had been displaced by German troops who were warmly welcomed initially by Estonians given their experience of brutal Russian rule (from June 1940).
The Georgijevs crossed the border into Estonia on the 25th March 1942. At the border German and Estonian flags flew together. Aliide despite being seriously ill was able to communicate the family's situation. Border guards at Narva responded positively.
Given their unhealthy state, both physically and mentally, the children were immediately quarantined, deloused, bathed and fed.
All managed to physically recover from the ordeal, all except Aliide. After days of suffering with typhus fever her body succumbed, she died on 24 May 1942, on the day of Pentecost, at 6.45am in Narva hospital, 'a terrible loss for the family', (Salme).
Salme and Albert remembered the family coming together for Aliide's funeral. Dark grey clouds, and a heavy downpour with water filling the empty grave. To weigh down the coffin heavy stones had to be used before any refilling of earth. Salme recalled that everyone present were devastated and her siblings traumatised. Her three younger sisters needed a mother and Salme, just 16, took on that role without question.
Given the sacrifice made Aliide has been held in high esteem by those who knew her. The children were aware of the cruel irony of their mother longing for them to go to Estonia and them (the children) actually being there but without her (their mother).