Alexei could not believe what he was hearing. As he sat dumbfounded in the cold and

sterile office in front of three stone-faced party officials, he begged them to reconsider.

It had been a week since the body of his 23-year-old son, Giorgi, had been discovered. And

although Alexei had long since given up hope that his son might be found alive, he had

not been prepared for the grief of finally knowing.

Now, having made the trip to Evedel, he was at the very least hoping to take his son's

body back home with him to Sfordlothsk. But the party officials had other ideas.

A decision had to be made that all of the bodies would be buried together in Evedel in a

mass grave. The families were invited to attend, but there would be no public announcement

and only a small obelisk to mark the spot. But Sfordlothsk is his home in Florida, Alexei.

That is where he lived, where he made friends. And if we bury him in Evedel, how are we to

visit him? But the decision was final. And besides, they said, all the other families had agreed

to it. Two by two, the parents of Ega, Zina, Yuri and Roustik, were called in to face the hastily

assembled committee and given the exact same distressing news, each being informed that the others

had consented to it. The parents struggled to process what they were being told. Not only did

it seem the authorities were trying to cover the whole instant up, but they were asking the parents

to become complicit in it too. The party was in effect, asking for nothing less than their

cooperation in erasing the history of their children's lives.

Like most people in the Soviet Union, the parents were well aware of the lengths the state would

go to preserve their methods, but not to them, not this time. And it was of course a lie.

Not one of the sets of parents had agreed to their plan. On realizing the deception, the parents

fought back and eventually the party relented, but only on one condition. The students could be buried

...