#soviet deportations

[febrvarymoon]

Latvian photographer Gunārs Janaitis was just 14 years old when he secretly took this photo of a train leaving for Siberia labour camps on 25th of March, 1949. The animal wagons carried people captured by Russian authorities. The deportations were based on allegations for being either: 1) a nationalist (appearing loyal to Latvia rather than its invader, the Soviet Union); 2) a kulak (Soviet term for a relatively wealthy farmer). On this day in 1949, 42 125 people were deported from Latvia: 13 248 families, 11 316 men, 19 822 women, 10 987 children. Almost all of the deportees (95%) were Latvians.

[febrvarymoon]

[awesomefieldofpoppies]

On 25 March, twenty thousand candles, one for each of the men, women and children deported by the Soviets to Siberia in 1949, will be lighted on Freedom Square in Tallinn. Nearly 3% of the Estonian population were seized in a few days and dispatched to remote areas of Siberia.