Global True Lithuania Encyclopedia of Lithuanian heritage worldwide

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan was a nomadic land until the 20th century. The Russians annexed it in 1840-1860 and, after the communist revolution, forcibly settled the Kazakhs down into villages and towns.

They then used the emptied fierce local steppes (-40 C winter temperatures) for imprisonment, forced labor, and murder of political opponents and persecuted minorities from all over the Soviet Union.

Kazakhstan thus became a prison and a grave to many Lithuanians after the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940, with ~81 000 exiled to Kazakhstan (3% of the total Lithuanian population). Today, this part of the Soviet Genocide is reminded by the Lithuanian-funded monuments, museums. There is also the Lithuanian community who are descendants of GULAG (Soviet concentration camp) survivors that continues to create new Lithuanian sites in Kazakhstan.

Karaganda Karlag Lithuanian memorials

The largest GULAG system in Kazakhstan was based around Karaganda (pop. 500 000) and known as KARLAG. Its HQ was at Dolinka village, where Karlag museum now occupies that Stalinist building. Inside, there are somewhat-toned-down yet informative stories about the Gulag presented in an impressive way, with massive frescos and dioramas.

There are also replicas of torture cells – however, in reality, the building has not been used for „bloody purposes“, instead of being the posh base of the Gulag‘s leadership. The leader‘s cabinet is authentic and there is even a fountain in the courtyard.

Karlag‘s prisoners were spread among numerous towns and villages, built by their own forced labor. On the whole, Karlag controlled areas larger than Lithuania itself.

In fact, the entire Karaganda city was built by the forced labor of the Karlag prisoners. These prisoners have also been forced to work in the nearby mines, which were especially dangerous and detrimental to health, leading to especially high death rates (30% per year and more). Even in 1954 (after Stalin died), this GULAG housed some 20500 prisoners, ~3000 of them Lithuanians (15% of the total, even though Lithuanians made up only 1% Soviet Union population). During the reign of Stalin, the prisoner population there surpassed 60 000 at a given time.

Among the most infamous and deadly Karlag "posts" was the Spassk GULAG 30 km southeast of Karaganda. It was once nicknamed "brotherly graves“ due to high death rates. The location where dead prisoners use to be buried without any gravestone has been now repurposed as memorial cemetery with numerous new gravestones. Every "gravestone" is for a nation rather than a single man. Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Latvians, Poles, Jews, Armenians, Estonians, Russians, Koreans, Germans, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians, Belarusians, Karachay/Balkars, Persians, Slovaks, Spanish, French, Ukrainians, Armenians, Chechens/Ingushetians, Kyrgyz, even Japanese, Koreans and Philipinos have their memorials. Some of these peoples ended up in the cemetery as prisoners of war (e.g. Germans, Italians, Romanians, Japanese) because they fought against the Soviet Union in World War 2. Others, however, were victims of genocide as their entire nations were deported into Kazakhstan based on the ethnicity alone (e.g. Chechens, Ingushetians), the majority of such deportees being children.

While all the nationalities have just a single gravestone, there are Four Lithuanian memorials in Spassk. The main Lithuanian memorial is located next to all the other national memorials at the entrance of the cemetery (constructed in 2004).

Additional three Lithuanian memorials are located approximately at the center of the cemetery.

The 1990 Lithuanian memorial was constructed by the visiting relatives of GULAG prisoners while Kazakhstan was still part of the Soviet Union. In fact, that simple marble construction was the first memorial in Spassk, which was then followed by the other nations as well as the other Lithuanian groups which constructed their memorials. The third Lithuanian memorial (a small cross) has been erected in 2011 by an SUV club „Pajūris“ which selected Kazakhstan as the end-point of their journey, while the fourth Lithuanian memorial (a large artistically-carved cross) was erected in 2017 by the Karaganda Lithuanians.

In 2020, Lithuanian exile graves were moved from Rudnyk (see below) to Spassk when the Rudnyk cemetery was condemned to become part of a mine.

Spassk GULAG may be reached from Karaganda by a rare bus 171 to Aktogai, it is possible to return by hitchhiking. Spassk is located en-route from Karaganda to Almaty.

Except for these memorials and the Dolinka museum, it is generally impossible to see much by visiting the former GULAG buildings in Karaganda or anywhere else in Kazakhstan. Some of them were abandoned and now lay in ruins (these may often be accessed, but little remains there). Others have been repurposed to general prisons or military bases (e.g. the one in Spassk), and remain inaccessible to the general population.

Karaganda Lithuanian life, museums, and church

To this day, Karaganda has the most visible Lithuanian community in the former places of Soviet exile. While most of the Karlag survivors managed to return to Lithuania in the 1950s after the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gradually dismantled the genocidal Stalin‘s policies, some have remained and their descendants now number ~2000 in the region and ~500 in the city itself.

While under the Soviet rule, the Lithuanian life centered around the St. Joseph Roman Catholic church (Kominterna st. 22, Maikuduk suburb). It has been built by a Lithuanian priest Albinas Dumbliauskas in 1977-1980 to become the sole Catholic church in the city (and, according to some sources, entire Central Asia). The building of a new Catholic church in the atheist Soviet Union was akin to a miracle. The story behind such miracle is that Dumbliauskas, unable to officially work as a priest or be jobless (according to the Soviet job laws), worked as an ambulance driver in Karaganda. While doing so, he helped a major Soviet official; in the Soviet Union, it was common to bribe doctors to perform their duties well, however, instead of a bribe, Dumbliauskas asked that the official would influence Moscow authorities to permit the construction of the church. A Lithuanian-language memorial plaque for Dumbliauskas and a multilingual (Lithuanian/Russian/German/Latin) memorial plaque commemorating the church‘s construction now adorn the church‘s side facade. Although having a strongly Lithuanian history and still cared for by a Lithuanian pastor (2018), the church itself was not Lithuanian but, as the area's sole Catholic church, was meant to serve all the Catholics exiled to Karaganda (that's why the inscriptions are also German and Russian).

After the independence of Kazakhstan, numerous new Lithuanian sites sprung up, often created by the leader of the local Lithuanian community Vitalijus Tvarionas (who is also a builder of many Lithuanian memorials in Kazakhstan).

In the northern suburbs of Karaganda, there is Lithuanian courtyard Lithuanian restaurant and art gallery (Litovskij dvor). Lithuanian national cuisine dishes (like great stuffed potatoe dumplings etc.) are served there.

Next to it, there is a small Lithuanian house-museum (Litovskij dom-muzej) full of Lithuanian crafts. The exterior of both buildings is adorned with Lithuanian flags, traditional crosses and more. Both are open every day and are located at Taka Shabokina 4.

In the southern Karaganda, the Kazakhstani government has constructed the Palace of Friendship [Shakhterlar Avenue 64, 49.792015, 73.150051] to celebrate the multiethnic heritage of Karaganda. There, every major community of Karaganda has its own office, and so do the Lithuanians. There is also a Museum of ethnicities with a Lithuanian section (open every day). Each section is dedicated to an ethnicity that has its officially-registered community in Karaganda, most of such communities having roots in the Soviet exiles. Each section has various things dear to that ethnicity, as well as the folk costume.

In the main Karaganda regional museum [Bukhar-Zhyrai 47], a Karlag exhibit has been established too. However, there is nothing specifically about Lithuanians and there are better Gulag exhibits elsewhere.

Karaganda also has a street named after Lithuanians (Litovskij pereulok).

Zhezkazgan and the infamous Kengir GULAG

Zhezkazgan city was the site of the infamous Kingyr GULAG. There, a massive uprising against the Soviet regime took place in 1954, crushed by the Soviet authorities despite the spirit of de-Stalinization that prevailed then, after Stalin‘s death.

The buildings of the Kingyr GULAG now either lay in ruins, are abandoned, or have been replaced by factories. They are located near Zhastar St. [47.778274, 67.733655 – Osoblag HQ, 47.776377, 67.732917 – abandoned GULAG officials zone, 47.779212, 67.729462 – abandoned GULAG buildings]

However, in 2004, Lithuanians have constructed a massive Lithuanian Kingyr memorial at the presumed site of GULAG‘s cemetery of murdered, tortured-to-death or worked-to-death prisoners [47.775564, 67.756784]. The memorial was designed by architect A. Vyšniūnas (himself born in Kazakhstan to exiled parents) and it has incorporated the remains of a simpler earlier memorial: a tall cross erected by the first Lithuanian expedition to the places of exile in Kazakhstan in 1990 (that expedition was organized and done by the exiled Lithuanians themselves as they revisited the locations of their exile). The cross has been toppled by strong winds in the late 1990s or the early 2000s. The memorial was expanded in 2019 by adding additional cross and authentic slabs from the Kingyr gulag.

While it is unclear if the Lithuanian memorial truly stands at where the Kingyr GULAG cemetery used to be located, the massive memorial atop a hill that is visible from the nearby road and railway became a well-known hub for further memorials. The Lithuanian memorial thus has been since joined by smaller memorials dedicated to Latvians, Ukrainians, and Russians who perished in Kengir. All the memorials and the GULAG itself may be accessed from Zhezkazgan center by bus 96.

Kingyr was part of a larger GULAG system known as Steplag and, statistically, there were more ethnic Lithuanians incarcerated there than people of any other ethnicity, except for Ukrainians. All this despite Lithuanians making up just 1% of the Soviet Union‘s total population.

An even eerier Steplag location to visit was Rudnyk (marked on maps as an exclave of Zhezkazgan city west of the city of Satpaev, 26 km northeast of Zhezkazgan-proper). That town used to be the post of Steplag that housed the most prisoners and was especially deadly (in the years 1942-1943, for example, some 100 prisoners used to die every day, out of the total population of 9000-12 000; the dead prisoners were constantly replaced by new ones).

Currently, the Stalinist-era town is dying itself as it is to be replaced by an open-pit mine. Many of its buildings are abandoned or destroyed, and its central park also seems derelict. Behind the Rudnyk‘s central park lays the Rudnyk cemetery. While the original GULAG prisoner cemeteries did not survive (their locations being unknown), the Rudnyk cemetery also has numerous Lithuanian graves: there, people who died after being let out of the GULAG yet stayed in Kazakhstan (or died before managing to return to Lithuania) are buried. The cemetery is unique because Lithuanians there are buried in a single spot next to each other. Nine graves form a single Lithuanian memorial, adorned by a concrete cross. Note: in 2020, the memorial and remains were removed to Spask

Possibly every larger Christian cemetery in the area of the former Gulags has some Lithuanian burials, as some Lithuanians were either unable or did not want to return to Lithuania, where the Soviets have destroyed the previous lives they had: natinalized all the property, possibly killed off the relatives and friends. Such Lithuanians eventually died in Kazakhstan and were buried in local cemeteries. Their graves are adorned by Catholic crosses (sometimes Lithuanian sun-crosses) and often also Latin-script epitaphs in Lithuanian. Many such graves look quite derelict, however, as all the relatives went back to Lithuania or died. A simple walk in any cemetery often leads to discovery of Lithuanian graves, but, except for Rudnyk, they are usually separate from each other.

Zhezkazgan regional museum has a section dedicated to Steplag with the information on these statistics and more (2nd floor). There, images of the Lithuanian memorials are also available.

Balkhash GULAG and Lithuanian memorial

Yet another Lithuanian memorial for GULAG victims stands in Balkhash, not far from the Lake Balkhash. There, another GULAG was located (Peschenlag). The entire city of Balkhash has been constructed by forced labor.

The memorial has been constructed in 2004 and has „Lietuviams kentėjusiems ir žuvusiems Pesčianlage“ (For Lithuanians who suffered and were killed in Peschenlag) inscribed on it in Lithuanian and Kazakh languages. It has joined an earlier Japanese (1993) memorial and has been joined by a later Kazakh-funded multi-ethnic memorial.

The Balkhash GULAG itself is in ruins.

Astana and north Kazakhstan Lithuanian sites

Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan (since 1997) is gleamingly post-Soviet. Therefore, it has very different kind of Lithuanian sites: those related to the rather cordial relationship between the two newly independent states.

Kazakhstan hosted the Expo 2017 world exposition, and its symbols – sculptures with eggs representing each country (including the Lithuanian ball) stands at Nurzhol Avenue near the Kaz Munay Gas HQ en-route to Bayterek.

The Museum of the First President of Kazakhstan [11 Beibitshilik Street] puts a heavy emphasis on the gifts received by the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev from various foreign countries. Many of these gifts are from Lithuania and the „Amber gifts“ exhibit is dominated by Lithuanian crafts.

Near Astana too, however, the dark Soviet past is present. The nearby village of Akmol (still often known by its Soviet-era name Malinovka) houses ALZHIR museum, located in the place of the former GULAG where the wives of the incarcerated „enemies of the state“ used to be kept. As this GULAG was the most active in the 1930s (before the Soviet Union has occupied Lithuania), few Lithuanian women ended up there (14, according to the official statistics). Still, as the area became a potent memorial for the cruelty of the Stalinist regime (which even jailed innocent women for the sole reason of them being wives or sisters of the political prisoners), the Lithuanians have erected a Memorial for the Lithuanian women in ALZHIR, next to similar memorials built by the other nations. Akmol village may be accessed using the buses 300 and 312 from Astana (which leave the Azija Park shopping mall stop).

In the Rudnyy city of northern Kazakhstan (pop. 100 000) there stands a Statue of Marytė Biežytė and there is a street named after her. She was a woman born in Lithuania who saved two local children by pushing them away from an approaching truck, dying herself why doing so. That story is famous in Rudnyy.

Diary of the Global True Lithuania expedition to Kazakhstan

While there have been many missions and expeditions to the places where Lithuanians were exiled, most of these expeditions concentrated just on visiting these sites of sorrow and paying respects to the victims by taking care of their graves. Such, for example, are the goals of „Misija Sibiras“, the most famous of such expeditions that take place annually and has visited Kazakhstan in 2009. A few other expeditions, especially ones led by architect A. Vyšniūnas, constructed their own memorials in Siberia and Kazakhstan. Neither of those expeditions would concentrate on marking down the exact sites of these locations, leaving little information for the tourists and those planning further expeditions alike, each of them having to discover everything on their own. For instance, when I contacted „Misija Sibiras“ regarding the sites of the graveyards of the expelled Lithuanians they helped to tidy, they, unfortunately, were unable to tell me that information as they claimed they don‘t keep it. In my own preparation to visit Kazakhstan I, therefore, was happy to learn that at least one recent expedition to Kazakhstan actually had a goal to find and mark the locations of all these places of Lithuanian sorrow as well as the Lithuanian memorials already commemorating that. I have met one of its participants PhD Linas Kvizikevičius whose information has been helpful in locating and photographing the sites for „Global True Lithuania“. On 2018 04 04, we have visited the ALZHIR GULAG. We have been surprised to learn that, although the GULAG even has a Lithuanian memorial, few Lithuanians have been incarcerated there (14, according to the museum). We have checked the wall with victims‘ names for Lithuanian surnames but have been largely unsuccessful, coming to believe that many names were Russified by adding Russian endings (at least two names looked Lithuanian, like Dargis, but were male rather than female). The museum workers directed us to a memorial for Stalinism victims but claimed that the GULAG‘s cemetery is inaccessible at that point of the year (March). On 2018 04 05, we have visited the Museum of the First President in Astana, checking what Lithuanians gifts are exhibited there. In the afternoon, we‘ve left Astana for Zhezkazgan in a night train. On 2018 04 06, after arriving in Zhezkazgan, we went to the bus station to check the possibilities to go to Rudnyk. There was no direct bus, but we went a bit closer to the Satpaev town (bus 101) and from there caught a taxi – a Soviet Zhiguli. The destruction and abandonment in Rudnyk have overwhelmed us, the entire town seemingly hanging between life and death. „Don‘t look at the schedule, the buses to Satpaev don‘t go that frequent anymore“ – old ladies at the bus stop told us as we checked when could we go back by bus. Having walked through the entire town we reached its end, where, even with coordinates of the cemetery known to us, we did not understand which dirt road to walk to continue. We have asked people who worked at a lonely building on the way and they showed us the wrong path where we were able to get close to the cemetery but an irrigation ditch separated us from it. There, an illegal archeologist was searching for something with a metal detector. Eventually, we got around the ditch and went to the cemetery, canvassing it for the memorial. Back in Zhezkazgan (by two buses, the Rudnyk-Satpaev one being unexpectedly crammed), we stayed in a local sanitarium-turned-hotel and walked around this prisoner-built city, seeing its numerous Soviet memorials and murals (Lenin has been toppled to be replaced by Ketbuka, however). On 2018 04 07, we made a long 7 km walk from central Zhezkazgan to the former Kingyr lager. On the way, we passed seemingly-crumbling Soviet industry and the related pollution. We have been unable to thoroughly investigate the lager itself, as the abandoned buildings had large dogs around them. We, however, went to the Lithuanian memorial, becoming inspired by its large size and it being visible from rather far away. It started raining, but the way back always used to be easier than the way forward, as in such remote locations any available bus usually goes back to the city center (whereas at the center, it is usually hard to know which bus (if any) goes to that remote destination, as places like Zhezkazgan have no route maps or schedules either online or at the bus stops). Indeed, the only bus that comes each hour to a nearby stop brought us back. There, in the center, we have visited the local history museum, spending the most time at the GULAG exhibit. We were suggested to also visit its another site dedicated to cosmonauts but few locals could help us to find such a building. Eventually, we went to the train station and, as we still had time before the train, we visited the Zhezkazgan cemetery, knowing that many of the Lithuanian imprisoned in the GULAG there weren‘t immediately allowed to return after their exoneration and had to stay in Zhezkazgan, so they were likely buried there. In a non-exhaustive search, we discovered one such grave, belonging to Pakarklytė, before a massive rain hit. Late in the evening, we departed in a night train to Karaganda. On 2018 04 08, we have arrived at Karaganda, visiting the local museum and finding the Gulag exhibit there sub-standard, mostly concentrating on portraits of Kazakhs who were imprisoned there. We also planned the next couple of days, researching the bus routes needed as well as their schedules. On 2018 04 09, we have left the rented apartment early in the morning so we could leave on 8:30 bus, which proved to be one of only two buses that day stopping by the Spassk memorial, some 30 km southeast. It was a bus going to Aktogay, some 300 km away, therefore, the tickets to the first stop were sold just when less than 30 minutes were left to the bus departing as the bus station still expected that more passengers who would ride further would come up. An even bigger surprise came in Spassk as we exited the bus – we were seemingly left in the middle of the nowhere, except for the strong winds and coming rain clouds, as our bus went on using the lonely road in the inhospitable Kazakh steppe. After taking the images of the memorial, we understood we‘d have to hitchhike back, but in Kazakhstan, a Soviet-era Niva SUV stopped even before we raised our hands. That‘s because hitchhiking is paid in Kazakhstan, and many drivers hope to earn an addition to their wages this way. The driver insisted on leaving us at Yugo-Vostok closed bus station instead of the city center, and from there we called Vitalijus Tvarionas, whom we knew to have been an especially active leader of the local Lithuanian community and a creator of many Lithuanian sites in Karaganda. Even before learning of our goals, he invited us to the Lithuanian Honorary Consulate (where he is the consul) and offered to drive us around. He showed us the sites he created and owns (Lithuanian House-Museum, Lithuanian restaurant), the Lithuanian-built church we didn‘t know about, a new cathedral, the Palace of Friendship where, unfortunately, the museum was closed. Tvarionas also told us much about the life and activities of the Karaganda Lithuanian community. On 2018 04 10, we spent the morning visiting the yesterday-closed museum at the Palace of Friendship, learning about the Karaganda‘s all communities. Later on, after checking out from the flat and taking our bags, we went to the bus station and then to Dolinka. After additional 2 km walk, we reached the museum there and were pleasantly surprised by its scale and informativeness, as well as modernity. We didn‘t find any Lithuanian memorials in front of it, but Tvarionas told us yesterday he is creating a cross that will be erected in Dolinka in the summer of 2018. Later in Almaty, we have met a Lithuanian priest Juris who serves in the church of Karagandy built by Dumbliauskas. At the time, he was in the convention of Kazakhstan's priests in Almaty. He told us the story of the church. We have also met the general consul of Lithuania in Almaty Darius Vitkauskas, who expressed the interest in our work, hopes that it would help him to learn more about the Lithuanian sites in Kazakhstan. He also explained his plans to offer basic Lithuanian culture courses in the consulate in hopes that they would attract the descendants of exiled Lithuanians who have lost the connection to Lithuanian culture. Moreover, we have also met Lithuanian expatriates businessmen living and working in Almaty, of which, we have learned, there are over 100 and possibly up to 1000 all over Kazakhstan, as Lithuanians used well the Kazakh policies encouraging attraction of foreign experiences; coming from a rather economically-advanced country, Lithuanian businessmen have many experiences to use, yet, being from the former Soviet Union, they are also well-versed in the post-Soviet nuances and Russian language. This group of Lithuanian expatriates has not created any visibly Lithuanian sites so far, however, but the Lithuanian-owned companies are prominent in certain fields of Kazakh economy. Augustinas Žemaitis, 2018 04-10.