The Canadian Jewish News highlights a Jewish cemetery restoration project in the Russian town of Mysovsk or Mysovaya, now called Babushkin, on the southern shore of Lake Baikal. Today a stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the town was until 1907 a prosperous “camel stop” along czarist Russia’s Great Tea Road, with more than 1,600 Jewish residents.
The restoration is spearheaded by a Russian-born, Toronto-based author, Vladimir Rott, who has established a web site for the project with contact information and other details, including a list of people named on the surviving gravestones.
The CJN article, by Cynthia Gasner, describes how Rott and his wife (whose family came from the town) became involved in the move to restore it and create a memorial there.
In 1974, engineer, author and research historian Vladimir Rott defected from Russia and settled in Toronto. Two years later, he was able to liberate his wife Iya and his children “with the help of great Canadians.”
Now, 40 years later, he’s dedicated to finding the descendants of the small town of Mysovaya in Siberia and restoring the destroyed Jewish cemetery where his wife’s family lived for generations.
While the last burial took place in 1937, this abandoned cemetery dates back to 1825. His wife’s grandfather, Shlomo Chaim Guterman, who was a prosperous tinsmith, is buried in the Mysovaya Cemetery. […]
The surviving tombstones are lying broken on the ground and many were stolen. The remnants of the scattered gravestones outside the cemetery are being collected.
Rott has been deciphering the remains of the Russian letters on the tombstone, and Gary Kipper, the ba’al koreh of the Torah Emeth Congregation, where the Rotts are members, is restoring the Hebrew.
To date, they have discovered 44 names. These names will be inscribed on an eight-foot high black granite Shalom Memorial, in the shape of the Hebrew letter shin, signifying shalom.
Access the Mysovaya Jewish Cemetery Restoration Project web site