Yusif Vazir Chamanzaminli - Death in The GULAG - Stalin's Political Prison Camps

Stalin's Political Prison Camps

But authorities eventually managed to track Vazirov down in Urganj in 1940 and they arrested him. He was brought back to Baku for a drawn-out interrogation that lasted six months. Chamanzaminli learned that Bakir Chobanzade, a Crimean Tatar poet, had implicated him. Clearly from photos, it can be seen that Vazirov was tortured during his interrogation period. None of his family members were allowed to visit him during this time but transcripts of the "interrogations" show that he never admitted to the Soviet government's false accusations, nor did he implicate any fellow Azerbaijanis in an attempt to get his own sentence reduced. Condemned on fabricated charges, Vazirov was sentenced to eight years at one of the Gulag political prisoner camps at Sukhobezvodnaya near Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. He died of malnutrition, disease, and - no doubt - heart break, three years after his arrest in January 1943.