Sandarmokh is a forest massif 12 kilometres from Medvezhyegorsk in the Republic of Karelia where thousands of victims of Stalin's Great Terror were executed. Over 9,000 people of more than 58 nationalities were shot and buried there in 236 communal pits over a 14-month period in 1937 and 1938.

3,500 were inhabitants of Karelia, 4,500 were prisoners working for the White Sea - Baltic Canal, and 1,111 were brought here from the Solovki special prison. Alongside hard-working peasants, fishermen and hunters from nearby villages, there were writers and poets, scientists and scholars, military leaders, doctors, teachers, engineers, clergy of all confessions and statesmen who found their final resting place here.

Today Sandarmokh is a memorial to the crimes of Stalin and his regime. (Wikipedia)