Kolpashevo (russian: Колпа́шево) is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an o ...

and the

administrative center An administrative center is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune is located. In countries with French as administrative language (such as Belgium, Lu ...

Kolpashevsky District Kolpashevsky District (russian: Колпа́шевский райо́н) is an administrativeLaw #271-OZ and municipalLaw #195-OZ district (raion), one of the sixteen in Tomsk Oblast, Russia. It is located in the center of the oblast. The area of ...

Tomsk Oblast Tomsk Oblast (russian: То́мская о́бласть, ''Tomskaya oblast'') is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). It lies in the southeastern West Siberian Plain, in the southwest of the Siberian Federal District. Its administrative ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

, located on the

Ob River } The Ob ( rus, Обь, p=opʲ: Ob') is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia; and together with Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . It forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins ...

. Population:

History

It has existed since the beginning of the 17th century as a village. Town status was granted to it in 1938.

Mass grave

During the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

, Kolpashevo was the site of mass executions carried out by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

, with the corpses of those executed being disposed of in

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

s. In May 1979 meandering of the Ob river caused a mass grave containing more than 1,000

mummified A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay furt ...

corpses to become exposed. A number of cover-stories were issued by the local government, first that these bones were cattle bones, and then that these were the bodies of

deserters Desertion is the abandonment of a military duty or post without permission (a pass, liberty or leave) and is done with the intention of not returning. This contrasts with unauthorized absence (UA) or absence without leave (AWOL ), which a ...

from the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. Instead most of the bodies were people from

Tomsk Tomsk ( rus, Томск, p=tomsk, sty, Түң-тора) is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast in Russia, located on the Tom River. Population: Founded in 1604, Tomsk is one of the oldest cities in Siberia. The city is a n ...

Yegor Ligachev Yegor Kuzmich Ligachyov (also transliterated as Ligachev; russian: Егор Кузьмич Лигачёв, link=no; 29 November 1920 – 7 May 2021) was a Soviet and Russian politician who was a high-ranking official in the Communist Party o ...

, the provincial party chief, took charge of a cover-up operation to destroy the mass grave using tugs, and used the KGB to coerce local people to dispose of the corpses by sinking them, although some corpses turned up in the sluiceway of a sawmill downstream, mixed with logs floated downstream.

Administrative and municipal status

Within the framework of administrative divisions, Kolpashevo serves as the

, to which it is directly subordinated.Law #271-OZ As a municipal division, the

of Kolpashevo, together with three rural localities, is incorporated within Kolpashevsky Municipal District as Kolpashevskoye Urban Settlement.Law #195-OZ

Transportation

The town is served by the

Kolpashevo Airport Kolpashevo Airport () is an airport in Russia located 3 km northeast of Kolpashevo Kolpashevo (russian: Колпа́шево) is a town and the administrative center of Kolpashevsky District in Tomsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Ob R ...

Climate

Kolpashevo has a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, g ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

''Dfc''), with very cold winters and warm summers.

Precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

is moderate and is somewhat higher in summer than at other times of the year.

References

Notes

Sources

* * {{Authority control Cities and towns in Tomsk Oblast Populated places on the Ob River Populated places established in the 17th century