Natalia Semyonovna Karikh

Born on August 18, 1885, in the village of Romanovo, Lebedyansky County, Tambov Province, in the peasant family of Semyon Ivanovich and Anastasia Grigoryevna Desyatykh.

On November 9, 1903, she married Sergey Alipievich Filonov. On March 24, 1904, her husband died of tuberculosis, and Natalia returned to her parents' home.

On November 8, 1904, she married Andrey Feofilaktovich Ustinov. They had five children: Vera, Pelageya, Marina, Andrey, and Nikolay.

Sometime in the 1920s, Natalia Semyonovna became a widow again.

In 1933, she became the churchwarden of the Church of the Archangel Michael. In September 1937, the priest serving in their church was arrested, and Natalia Semyonovna began searching for another priest so that the people would not be left without services, and the believers collected signatures on a petition asking the authorities not to close the church.

Meanwhile, it became known that the authorities still planned to close the church. Since the authorities sometimes implemented decisions to close churches through assemblies, each assembly in the village began to be awaited by the believers with great concern. The next assembly, timed to the elections to the Supreme Soviet, was scheduled for December 6, 1937. At the assembly, Natalia Semyonovna addressed the peasants, asking them to stand up for the church and help find a priest. On the same day, in accordance with NKVD order No. 00447, a case was initiated against the churchwarden and members of the church council.

On December 10, 1937, the authorities arrested Natalia Semyonovna. She was part of a group case "Case of the nuns Andreyeva, Saprunova, and others, Romanovo village, Lipetsk region, 1937."

From the interrogation protocol:

– You are arrested for anti-Soviet activities. Do you plead guilty?

– I do not plead guilty.

– The investigation has evidence that you conducted anti-Soviet agitation among the backward part of the population in the village of Romanovo. Tell us about it in detail.

– I did not do any of this.

– You are lying. At the assembly in the club on December 6 of this year, you demonstratively expressed counter-revolutionary statements about Soviet power and its leaders and conducted monarchist agitation. I demand truthful testimony from you.

– On December 6, I was at the assembly in the club, but I did not do anything anti-Soviet there.

– You are lying. The investigation has established that you, together with other anti-Soviet individuals, came organized to this assembly to disrupt it and conducted counter-revolutionary agitation. Tell us about it in detail.

– At this assembly, the members of the church council were with me. That day, I went around all the members of the church council and suggested they come to the club for the assembly because the RIC commissioner told me to gather the council. I had no other purpose in this case.

After Natalia Semyonovna's arrest, members of the village council sent a characteristic to the NKVD about her, stating:

"Until 1933, Karikh was engaged in peasantry. In 1933, she became a churchwarden of the Romanovo church and that same year was subjected to a fixed task for non-fulfillment, she was imposed an individual tax as a churchwarden – a non-working element. Since becoming a churchwarden, she has continuously conducted anti-Soviet work, persistently fought against collectivization, and struggled to strengthen religion."

On December 17, 1937, Natalia Semyonovna and some of the arrested members of the council were transferred to the prison in the city of Dankov, which was then central to that region. On December 28, the investigator interrogated the confessor again.

At the NKVD troika meeting, the investigator presented the following report: "Karikh Natalia Semyonovna... Accused under NKVD order No. 00447. The accused Karikh, along with a group of churchmen, former nuns, conducted active counter-revolutionary agitation throughout 1937. In December 1937, she demonstratively slandered Soviet power at a women's assembly and conducted counter-revolutionary, monarchist agitation."

On December 30, 1937, Natalia Semyonovna was sentenced by the NKVD Troika of the Ryazan region to eight years of corrective labor camps. She served her sentence in Karlag.

On April 20, 1942, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Karaganda Regional Court sentenced her in the Akmolinsk section of Karlag under the group case "Case of Evdokia (Andrianova) and 11 prisoners. Akmolinsk. 1942," charging her with "counter-revolutionary activities, conducting anti-Soviet agitation, and covering it with religious beliefs," and sentenced her to execution. She did not plead guilty.

The sentence was carried out. Her burial place is unknown.

On May 30, 1989, she was rehabilitated by the prosecutor's office of the Lipetsk region for the 1937 repression.

On April 14, 1993, she was rehabilitated under the law of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the 1942 repression.

She was glorified as a saint at the Jubilee Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000.