vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #611 / Social life / Reading article...

As a result of desolation and construction, Vladivostok’s memorial cemetery to soldiers who died in the Battle of Lake Khasan in southern Primorye 70 years ago, is surrounded by weeds, loam and rocks.

The four common graves appeared in the cemetery in Vladivostok’s residential district of Egersheld in the summer of 1938, when 12 Red Army soldiers were buried after the battle which occurred as a result of Japan’s military incursion into Russian territory.

“This used to be a very neat cemetery with flowers, trees and green grass growing,” recalls Vlagenoly Klimenko, an 80-year-old Vladivostok resident, who in his childhood, was among those 100,000 city residents who took part in the funeral procession.

In 1954, the remains of four out of the 12 soldiers were transferred to the city’s Marine Cemetery. With the cemetery in Egersheld closed for burying both the military and civilians, the soldiers’ common graves became victims of neglect.

In 1988, Klimenko initiated erecting a monument to the heroes of Khasan at the cemetery, with hundreds of Vladivostok resident responding to his call and donating 100,000 rubles. The obelisk, which has two large stone bayonets symbolizing the Red Army’s border guards and soldiers’ unity, was placed near the graves.

However, “the bronze plate with the soldiers’ names carved into it was stolen long ago by scrap metal gatherers,” Klimenko laments. “There are only the concrete slab and the stone bayonets left,” he says.

Out of the four graves, only two remain.

Today, the graves and the monument suffer from the construction of private homes and the progress of industrial engineering works, with machinery vehicles operating some 20 meters from the place.

The decision to build private houses near the cape of Tokarevsky where the preserved area is located was taken in the early1990s. Meanwhile, the monument and the cemetery were made into recreational areas by a resolution from Primorye’s administration, prohibiting any construction works - while two years later the monument was also included on the list of temporarily preserved zones of Vladivostok’s historical center.



Meanwhile, according to the more than two-year-long correspondence between residents of local private homes and Primorye and Vladivostok administrations, the territory has seen excavation works, the destruction of the ground growth layer as well as attempts to construct temporary roads through the cemetery.

In 2003, a plot of land was bought in the area by an individual wanting to construct a private home – however, “instead of using the plot for its intended purpose, the man organized a utility base, with scrap metal, materials and vehicles, illegally taking the adjacent territory of 400 square meters,” the application from a local housing cooperative ‘Vostok’ to Vladivostok’s Prosecutor’s Office reads.

Fortunately, with the monument preserve document recently granted by the Culture Department to the cooperative’s members who have been driven by a wish to preserve the obelisk and the graves, there is hope that the monument will be finally restored. Now, numerous public organizations, as well as sponsors, have a good opportunity to put their efforts and money into the historical object, with the upcoming 70th anniversary of the Battle of Khasan this summer.