How the communists from Chuvashia defeated their ancestors

Yuri Dadyukov, a “local historian” and Nikolai Shemyakin, a self-taught sculptor, with the help of members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, unveiled a bust of Stalin in a Chuvash village, it is already the second in the republic.

Хурапыр, Питĕркасси ял тăрăхĕ, Хĕрлĕ Чутай районĕ

Population: 140 people

Chuvash – 99%

First mention – in 1869.

In 2010 there were 155 people in 67 households, in 2002 – 188 in 103 households. However, the population began to fall sharply not with the collapse of the USSR, but much earlier – due to Stalin’s policies. The same tyrant to whom the local mankurts erected the memorial bust.

In 1869, the village population was 235 people, in 1897 there were already 354, in 1926 – 465, in 1939 – 575. However, in 1979, there were only 348 people left in the village. What could have led to the fact that constantly a growing village suddenly began to empty? The answer is not some kind of mysticism.

In 1921-1923, the village experienced the artificial famine organized by the Bolshevik occupiers, which led not only to the deaths of the local residents, but also to a decrease in the birth rate, because people did not want to have children under such authorities. In 1931, only the local villagers had time to come to their senses a little thanks to the NEP policy, which the Bolsheviks had established after the artificial famine in order to reduce anti-Bolshevik sentiments among the nations – a new collective farm was opened in the village and people began to be driven into it, taking away most of their property, and repressing those who refused. Nor was it without mobilizing the population for wars of conquest. As a result, the village continued to grow by inertia for several more years, but the process of decline had already been launched.

All problems can be blamed on urbanization and people’s desire to move to cities, but peasants only began to receive their passports in 1974, and the next census of 1979 showed that only half of the village population of 1939 remained. It is unlikely that half of the village would have left in 5 years, since relocation is troublesome and time-consuming. That is, people simply died out. All this has hit the village demographics so hard and continues to hit it to this day that another 20 years will pass and practically nothing will remain of the village.

It is interesting that the occupation authorities of Chuvashia, which cultivates love for the Soviet period in people, have threatened to recognize the opening ceremony of the bust as “illegal rally” and fine the participants. However, this has not happened yet.