In this post, we would like to share with our followers a small video excerpt from one of the episodes “Gulag. Witnesses.” of the documentary series. This is our attempt to preserve the memory of innocent victims of Stalin’s regime, a group of young men in their 20s who lived in Moscow and called their friendship union a “club of gentlemen”. By the oppressive communist regime, these boys were perceived as a threat to “national security” and all of them were arrested and consequently executed.
The video excerpt has a background voice in Russian, and at this moment, no English subtitles. To partly resolve this issue we attach below the English translation:
Butovo polygon. These shots show a group of people shot in just one day. March 25, 1938. Among them is a group of guys who knew each other well. They called themselves the “Gentlemen’s Club”. Jokingly or seriously. A few group photos have been preserved – everyone is 20-23 years old. Except for Zhenya Ponomarev, who was 7 years older than his brother. He was accused of being the initiator of the group. The leader (according to the investigation materials or in reality) was Vitya Weber, an accountant at the Moninsky worsted mill. He was not even 22 years old. He was arrested first. He was followed by his brothers Zhenya and Volodya Ponomarev. Zhora Kottrel was taken from the institute dormitory. His brother Sasha was taken from home. The Textile Institute, where he studied, was very close to the 2nd Donskoy Proezd, where he lived with his parents. Vanya Chistyakov and Gena Dikarev were the last to be arrested. All of them were convicted on the charge of “leading the fascist youth organization “Gentlemen’s Club”, and by the decision of the Troika of the NKVD Department of the Moscow region were sentenced to execution. On March 25, 1938 the sentence was carried out. Brothers Volodya and Zhenya. Zhora and Sasha… It is impossible to imagine how they felt when they went to be shot. The case was recognized as falsified 18 years after the sentence was carried out.