07.11.2014  The story of Kolmovo Mental Hospital demolishing was narrated at the Medical Conference

On 06 November, the conference "Actual Issues of Neurology and Psychiatry" dedicated to the memory of Professor Gennady Bryzhakhin took place at the NovSU School of Medical Education. Practitioners - neurologists, mental physicians, narcologists, lecturers, Regional Board of Health representatives, attending physicians and interns took part in the Conference. Issues of medical and preventive service for under-age narcological risk group, general practitioner's neuropsychiatric work aspects were discussed during the Conference.

Rector of NovSU Viktor Weber

Gennady Bryzhakhin was one of those who came to Novgorod from Kazakhstan in the beginning of 90s and formed the core of a new Faculty of General Medicine, and later, the core of the NovSU School of Medical Education. He became the first head of Neurology and Psychiatry Department, which he headed for more than 10 years. The Rector of NovSU Viktor Weber opened the conference with remembrance of Gennady Bryzhakhin: "I'm very glad, that we congregate every year and hold the conference in honor of Professor Gennady Bryzhakhin, our friend, colleague and mentor. He always was a model of a goal-oriented person; he possessed equally intelligence, medical professional manners, erudition and enormous humanity. You know, when a problem arises, I always think what Gennady Bryzhakhin would do in such situation... He made many tools by himself and plenty of inventions; he had lots of efficient proposals... I guess, the Faculty and the School have become successful thank to Gennady Bryzhakhin.

Presentation by Boris Kovalyov

For the first time, the historian and Senior Research Scientist of the History School in St. Petersburg Boris Kovalyov took part in this Conference. His report was addressed to the fact of demolishing of Kolmovo Psychiatric Hospital during the World War II: "Working in Germany I got some unique pictures from my German colleagues - single-frame photography of patients some days before their physical destruction... By the beginning of occupation, there were 800 patients. There was a question concerning their total physical destruction, even debates between SS and so-called Wehrmacht Christians. After all, a certain compromise was reached: 200 patients were killed with lethal injection; other 600 had an alternative - to die of starvation in the next several months. 

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