Kazakhs Honor Stalin's Victims

Dozens came on May 31 to the memorial of Stalinist repressions, built on the site of a mass grave in the village of Zhanalyq, near the Kazakh city of Almaty. Mourners brought portraits of ancestors executed or disappeared under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's rule. Some made the case that political violence is not over yet. Speaking to RFE/RL, activist Rysbek Sarsenbai referred to people "shot dead indiscriminately" during unrest that swept Kazakhstan in 2022. The country marks May 31 as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Political Repression and Famine. At least 25,000 people were executed in Kazakhstan in 1937-38 alone. Also in the 1930s, famine triggered by farm collectivization killed at least 1.3 million Kazakhs.