On April 7, 2019, within the framework of the “Rouhani-Zhangyru” program, a group of teachers of Foreign Languages Department of FMO Beysembaeva S.T., Smolina L.I., Bukayeva G.A., Kusainova R.E., KulakhmetovaZh.T. organized an excursion trip forthe students of ENU: “ALZHIR - my memory and pain” to the museum of victims of political repression “ALZHIR” (Akmola village, Akmola region).
It is the place wherethe notorious Akmola camp of the wives of traitors to their homeland - “ALZHIR” was situated, and where over 18,000 women were kept in different years, whose only fault was that they were just the wives of those arrested and executed “enemies of the people”.
Here, among the prisoners were Aziza Ryskulova and her mother Arif Yesengulova, Damesh Zhurgeneva, Rabiga Asfendiyarova, singer Lydia Ruslanova, actress Lydia Frenkel, writer Galina Serebryakova, sisters of Marshal Tukhachevsky, mother of Bulat Okudzhava and Maya Plisetskaya
The museum staff conducted teachers and students through the entire memorial complex consisting of several objects: the monument “Arch of Sorrow”, memorial signs erected by foreign embassies, the “Stalin's wagon” and “Barak No. 26”. Inside the museum, they showed the documents and demonstrated expositions on the 1st and 2nd floors describing the difficult period in the life of the Kazakh people during the years of mass political repression, and the gratitude of women prisoners to the Kazakh people for their help and support.
Together with the group of visitors was a professor, an independent expert from Germany Michael Nаdеr.
This excursion made an indelible impression on all visitors of the museum. Such pages of history should not be forgotten. The memory of them must be passed on from generation to generation.
