Russians mark anniversary of Stalin's purges

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MEDVEZHEGORSK, Aug 5 (AFP): Relatives of the victims of Stalin's purges held a ceremony Sunday at an execution site in a Russian forest on the 70th anniversary of the start of the mass killings.
Dozens of family members were joined by a few hundred campaigners, officials and local residents and clerics for the Remembrance Day ceremony by the mass graves of Sandormokh. Memorial, a Russian human rights group, organised the event.
August 5 marks the day in 1937 when top Stalin henchman Nikolai Yezhov issued the notorious Order 00447 for the mass executions of "anti-Soviet and socially dangerous elements."
"We cannot forget that this evil took place. Otherwise, evil will beget evil," said one of the relatives, Liza Derybash, 79, whose mother was executed and buried in one of the mass graves of Sandormokh in November 1937.
Some 7,000 people are believed to lie buried in at least 40 mass graves found at Sandormokh, near the town of Medvezhegorsk, the site of a former prison camp around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) north of Moscow.