St-Petersburg residents to invite children from Novye Aldy to excursions

On February 5, 2009, the Scientific-Information Centre "Memorial" in St-Petersburg hosted a meeting in memory of victims of the tragedy in Novye Aldy village - of the "zachistka" (clean-up) conducted on February 10, 2000, by the Petersburg OMON. To correct the opinion of Chechen residents about St-Petersburg, the organizers of the action offered to invite children from the village to their city.

The audience of the event was shown a documentary filmed by "Memorial" employees a couple of days after the tragedy. The film contains interviews with eyewitnesses and bodies of the casualties. Aldy villagers were telling about how everything took place on that day: who came to the village, how and who was murdered, as Nikolai Rybakov, one of the organizers of the action and a member of Petersburg "Yabloko", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Recently, eight years after "zachistka", the "Memorial" has again filmed interviews with the villagers. Many of them left for other cities and even countries - their evidences were also included into the new documentary to be shown later, as Mr Rybakov has added.

About 30 persons came to the meeting. Nobody was invited deliberately, only those came who heard about it over the radio.

After watching the film, people spoke of what could be done to improve at least slightly the impression in Aldy about St-Petersburg. The organizers of the action suggested launching a project of making trips of Aldy children to Petersburg. About 10 people can come every year and live in families from several days to several months. The participants of the meeting spoke in support of the organizers' initiative.

Today, at 5-6 p.m. in Malaya Konyushenaya Street, near the monument to Gogol a mourning picket was held in memory of the victims of the tragedy. It was organized by the public organization "House of Peace and Non-Violence", members of the Society "Memorial" and "Yabloko" Party.

: "Today is nine years after Novye Aldy residents were executed in Chechnya," "In Moscow, people commemorated the victims of "zachistka" in the Chechen village of Samashki," "Picket in memory of "zachistka" victims in Novye Aldy held in Moscow."