Valentina Alekseeva

Head of the department of ecology and local studies of the Gubakha Central Library, coordinator of the «Immortal Regiment» in Gubakha, published collection of 129 stories of Gubakha dwellers who fought at the Second World War. In 2016, she created the virtual museum «Gubakha: history and lives», and the newspaper on the local lore «The Gubakha Chronometer». Organizer of tours around «Ghost city». In 2018, she published the book «Where is this street? Where is this house?» about Gubakha townships off the map.

Quotes

• Metaphor 'ghost city' appeared mainly because of the Internet. Actually, atmosphere here is kind and even somewhat holy.
• I collect people's memories while it is still possible. As later they will be gone.

My story

I was born in Gubakha, but before school, I lived at my grandma's in Tambov region. We lived in Lower Gubakha, and the Upper Gubakha was the centre of the city. Lower and Upper Gubakhas were in the middle of the air-polluted area so they soon started resettling people to a newly built city on the left bank of Kosva river. At that time, all heating worked on coal: boiler rooms, houses, even electric station worked on coal, so ecology was not the best. Everything is much better there now — a lot of greenery, no black cover as in the years when people had to leave town. Citizens were moved but they still use their houses in the Upper Gubakha as dachas, and some of them even still live there on the constant basis.

The idea of making tours around Upper Gubakha, so called «ghost city», appeared during preparations for the festival Tsar of Mountain there back in 2012. I had a large base of texts about the history of the townships, and a large base of photos, perhaps, that is why I was offered to lead those tours. I felt people were interested in them, so I continued. I did and posted on the Internet two videos with photos of the past years — «Ghost City» (Upper Gubakha) and «Gubakha Which Is No More» (Lower Gubakha). After that, visitors from Perm, Yekaterinburg, Moscow became interested in history of the city and getting acquainted with it through the tours.

In 2014, I became coordinator of the Immortal Regiment in Gubakha. I inform people about the event through announcements, newspaper, and website. I organize participants, scan and process photos of the war veterans that they will march with in the Immortal Regiment, assist in ordering portraits. Often I get requests from people who want to learn more about history of their relatives. I search out information on the special websites for them or give them contacts of recruiting stations and archives. Since Gubakha joined the Immortal Regiment, number of people with requests about their relatives has increased. Number of the participants also increases: first year it was 200 people, this year there was about 700 people.

My father's brother, Alexei Alekseev was on the active service. I couldn't find any information about him, no leads left, gone missing. My grandmother told me that the last letter from him arrived in 1943, he wrote from the hospital. After that there was silence. At that time I was at the age when you don't usually think of preserving family history. We listened to our grandparents' stories, but there is little left of them. It wasn't usual back then, only nowadays many families try to keep track on their genealogy.

Many pupils know no war heroes, pioneers-heroes, young guards. I often go to schools talking about Gubakha dwellers who fought in war. Students take it with interest; they are keen to know more about particular people coming from places they know. Thus, for example, the Soviet Union Hero Ivan Kondaurov got this rank at the age of 19; he studied in school and college in Gubakha. I tell them about soldiers who studied at their schools, colleges, who were approximately the same age as the participants of our meeting.

Collecting material on Gubakha's history you sometimes come upon little- or unknown facts and events, you discover new information about your town. For example, there is a mountain Lubimovskaya, I known it since I was a kid, we picked berries there. Yet we never knew why it was called so, at least there was no proof to our ideas. Only 10 years ago, I found documents in the Regional archive about Ivan Ivanovich Lubimov who rented the mines of the Lower Gubakha from the Lazarevs. One more blank page in the history of the town covered.

It is interesting to do research work as you always discover something new but you don't always have time for it. There are many other projects, events. Library today is a cultural, entertainment, and educational centre. And it is rightly so. Every citizen can find something to do in the library: read a book, partake in the event, watch a movie, or share his or her memories that help to recollect city's history. All the information I collected I then share with other citizens of Gubakha rebuilding broken generation bridge and forming idea of their motherland.