Metadata: Kiev Special Commission to Observe Land Mass Conditions in the Region of Syretskii Yar
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- State Archive of the City of Kyiv
- Holding institution (official language):
- Державний архів міста Киева
- Postal address:
- 23 Olena Teliga Str., Kyiv, 04060, Ukraine
- Phone number:
- 380 (44) 440-54-16
- Web address:
- http://www.kiev-arhiv.gov.ua/
- Email:
- archive_kiev@arch.gov.ua
- Reference number:
- F. R-1446
- Title:
- Kiev Special Commission to Observe Land Mass Conditions in the Region of Syretskii Yar
- Title (official language):
- Киевская специальная комиссия по наблюдению за состоянием земельных масс в районе Сырецкого яра
- Creator/accumulator:
- Kiev Special Commission to Observe Land Mass Conditions in the Region of Syretskii Yar
- Date(s):
- 1961/1962
- Language:
- Russian
- Ukrainian
- Extent:
- 25 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Graphic material
- Photographic images
- Scope and content:
- Materials housed in the fonds connected with the so-called Kurenevka disaster include correspondence with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the Ukrainian SSR State Construction Committee, the Kiev Municipal Executive Committee, and construction and research organisations; expert findings and reports, and minutes of sessions of expert commissions; working drawings, schematics, and engineering and geological profiles of excavations and structures in the Babi (Syretskii) Yar region; documents on the acceptance of structures as usable; and photographs of the disaster site, and witness statements.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- In the late 1950s and early 1960s, leaders of Kiev and Ukraine decided to destroy Babi Yar and set up a park (with attractions, entertainment facilities, and sports fields) on the site, thus ruling out the memorialisation of the Jewish victims of the mass shootings at Babi Yar (itself unofficially renamed Syretskii Yar). On 13 March 1961, in the course of excavation work involving the pumping of liquid soil into the yar, a significant portion of it burst through levees, resulting in extensive destruction and numerous fatalities. Per the findings of the State Expert Commission to determine the accident’s causes, one of these was a failure to comply with state-mandated construction protocols. Working in parallel with the State Expert Commission in 1961-62 was another special commission, this one to observe land mass conditions; it analyzed design documentation and current soil conditions. Work on washing out part of Babi Yar at an altered volume was completed in July 1962, and subsequently a park was built at this location in lieu of an entertainment complex; a memorial to the Jewish victims at Babi Yar was set up in this park in 1991. The history of the Kurenevka disaster and the anti-Semitic subtext of the attempt to destroy Babi Yar are reflected in Anatolii Kuznetsov’s novel Babi Yar (the full version).
- Access points: locations:
- Babi Yar
- Kiev
- Syretskii (Babi) SYar
- Ukraine
- Access points: persons/families:
- Kuznetsov, A.
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes a single inventory provisionally systematised in thematic document groups.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary