Every war leaves behind human ruins—people with missing limbs, blindness, and deep psychological scars. World War II was no exception, especially for the Soviet Union, which lost over 20 million people.
In the immediate post-war years, the streets of Moscow, Kyiv, and Leningrad were filled with beggars—heroes of the “Great Patriotic War,” disfigured and amputated, wearing pinned medals on worn-out jackets. But this image clashed with the polished narrative of a triumphant socialist paradise. And so, the Soviet regime moved to make them disappear.
According to declassified KGB documents and witness accounts, thousands of disabled veterans were forcibly removed from city centers and relocated to remote facilities—including the infamous “special home for the disabled” on Lake Valaam.
Conditions in these facilities were horrific: food shortages, no medical care, inhumane treatment. Within a few years, more than 70% of the residents had died.
Valaam Island—today a pilgrimage site favored by Patriarch Kirill and Vladimir Putin—was once a place of suffering for those who had given everything for their country.
The true heroes of the USSR are not those paraded in portraits on May 9 by Russian propagandists. They are the nameless, abandoned veterans, buried in frozen soil, erased from history.
May their souls rest in peace.
