QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS
The morphological department of the medical institute is not a cheerful place.
In the basement, there are two morgues; in the classrooms, students study anatomy. Having lost my way in the desolate labyrinths of the upper floors, I carelessly entered one of these classrooms...
The working environment in the physical-technical department of the Republican Bureau of Forensic Medical Examination is designed solely for specialists. The familiar signs prohibiting entry to outsiders are perceived here as being made primarily for the benefit of the outsiders themselves.
... On the tables and shelves in three small rooms, human skulls are arranged. It is immediately clear that they are from the Chon-Tash "burial" due to the small, usually round holes of varying sizes.
In the occipital bone - and in the frontal bone.
In the occipital - and in the jaw.
In the occipital - and in the temple.
And here are two neat little holes next to each other. Not created by nature, but man-made.
What does a person think, clicking the shutter for the tenth, twentieth, fortieth time? Pulling the trigger? Does his hand tremble? Is his soul in place? Or do emotions seem unnecessary for those "honestly serving the idea"?
They earned their bread diligently. They shot in the back of the head.
Employees of the physical-technical department must provide answers to the investigation's questions. Determine the sex, age, racial affiliation of those whose remains were found, establish the cause of death, and the time since burial,
Using special computer programs in forensic medical osteology - the science of bones - we determine the sex and age of the unknown, - says Ruslan Chukin. - We do this based on the skull: it carries the maximum information about the individual. Moreover, as you saw, the way the people were "buried" there: they were simply thrown, dumped into the furnace. Therefore, establishing a correspondence between individual bones extracted from the ground and a specific skull is practically impossible.
Is it possible to establish the identity of anyone among those whose remains were extracted at Chon-Tash based on the skull?
In our conditions, this is a very complex task, perhaps even impossible. Our capabilities are limited: not all skulls have been preserved completely. There are multiple parts, scattered fragments that are no longer subject to examination. To establish the affiliation of the preserved skulls to specific individuals, we need as much information as possible about each person: lifetime photographs, data on diseases, injuries, dental status. Nine skulls have been found with crowns made of yellow metal. Experts have already established that this is gold. There is also one upper denture.
By education, Ruslan Chukin is a doctor, having worked as a resuscitator in the republican clinical hospital. Of his fourteen years of experience, six have been in forensic medical examination. According to Chukin, there is a lot of work: over three hundred examinations a year. And now there is also the Chon-Tash case.
In Chukin's expert group work young doctors Zholdoshbek Jumanaliev and Satinbek Kalmatov. Satinbek conducts the next measurements, determining the dimensions of the skull: longitudinal, transverse, and height diameters, upper facial height, full facial height. Entered into one of the computers, these and another two dozen indicators will return to the expert Yuri Bespalyy in a few minutes on a sheet of paper indicating the sex of the deceased. The computer's conclusions are difficult to question (a small detail: when discussing two skulls identified by the machine as female, Chukin was unaware of the size 36 shoe found along with other material evidence).
The examination of bone remains is one of the most complex. By the degree of fusion of the skull sutures and the wear of the teeth, they determine the age of the deceased. From several digital results of the diagnostics, the computer independently selects the average. Depending on the age of the person and the degree of preservation of the skull, the accuracy of this research ranges from one or two to ten years.
Preliminary, still incomplete data was obtained in early July.
Ruslan Chukin:
- Judging by the changes in the bone tissue, the time since burial is 50-55 years. Most of the deceased were of Asian nationality, aged approximately from forty to sixty. There are very few younger than this age.
Entry gunshot wounds are usually single. There are double and even triple - so far, there have been two cases... Just received data on this skull.
And the interlocutor places the skull on the table next to my notebook.
- Belongs to a male. Most likely of Caucasoid race. Age 40-50 years, height approximately 169 centimeters. The skull has two gunshot injuries... And here, in the center of the occipital bone, look, at a distance of thirty-one millimeters below the suture - a through injury of round shape, six millimeters in diameter. From the side of the inner bone plate, a chip of bone tissue is clearly visible. These are signs of an entry gunshot bullet injury.
The skull of a woman, most likely of Mongoloid race. Age from forty-one to fifty, height - about one hundred fifty-nine centimeters. There are grounds to believe that death most likely occurred from a gunshot injury...
This is only part, a fragment of the skull cap. Here is the frontal bone and part of the parietal. There are no injuries resembling gunshot wounds here. The examination cannot determine the sex, age, height, or cause of death.
Excavations at Chon-Tash were initiated at the initiative of the republican KGB.
It was late evening, the workday had ended, but the chairman of the Committee received the journalist immediately.
Does the KGB have any archival data on the Chon-Tash burial?
Major General Jumabek Asankulov:
The entire complex of operational-investigative measures has not yet been completed. Therefore, I consider it premature to speak about any specific facts. Moreover, to draw far-reaching conclusions.
We are trying to lift the veil of secrecy from what happened, as a rule, without witnesses, in the most "closed" years of the rampant Stalinist repressions, even for us today.
As you know, we ourselves extracted the remains, we sent them for examination ourselves. Our employees, together with colleagues from the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, are currently working in the archives, looking for relatives of the executed, witnesses. And every awkward, careless word in the press can seriously complicate this painstaking work.
Let’s call things by their names: one cannot speculate on this tragic topic, on human grief. Recently, the daughter of one of those repressed in thirty-seven visited me. Right here, where you are sitting, she fainted twice. My office has never seen so many tears of grief.
It was evident that General Asankulov himself was quite agitated.
We are involving major specialists: anthropologists, criminologists, forensic experts. To verify the accuracy of the data already available to the investigation. We hope that in two to two and a half months this work will be completed.
The conversation was concluded. Questions remained.
When was the death sentence carried out?
Which of those whose remains were found can you name today?
During those days, I had to ask these questions in various departments and offices, including high ones. It would be a great exaggeration to say that some officials with authority were eager to provide such information for publication. Although they agreed that this information does not, in principle, disclose the secrecy of the investigation.
One could even attempt to explain this situation somehow, although even then this "conspiracy of silence" resembled a habitual over-cautiousness.
Everyone who, in one way or another, was related to the Chon-Tash case by virtue of their service encountered such a legacy of the past for the first time.
With such evidence in a criminal case.
Moreover, the criminal case regarding the burial of the victims of the mass repressions of the 30s and 40s was initiated in the republic for the first time.
No one had experience in such work. Neither those conducting the investigation trying to clarify all the circumstances of the Chon-Tash tragedy nor those writing about it.
I no longer expected to receive an answer. And I was wrong.
Excerpt from the book "The Mystery of Chon-Tash." Published with the author's permission, Regina Khelimskaya.
The Mystery of Chon-Tash. June 12, 1991