The journal seized from Gromov’s apartment was placed in the closed archive of the investigative department. It is a grim record of a weak man who spent 30 years living with a secret that hollowed him out from the inside.
Criminal psychologists now study those pages, trying to understand how a person can carry that kind of burden for so long. Tamara Krylova, the former school accountant, also testified at trial.
She fully confirmed the existence of the school’s smuggling operation in the early nineties. Through tears, she said she deeply regretted not asking harder questions back then.
Maybe, she said, the tragedy could have been prevented if she had shown more courage. The old night watchman, Sam Volkov, had died peacefully in his bed in 2018.
He never learned what had really happened that night. Until the end of his life, he sincerely believed the students had run away to the city.
Sometimes he told neighbors he regretted not checking the building more carefully. He blamed himself only for being inattentive. The remains of the students were finally buried with full honors in June 2023.
A large shared grave was set aside in a central part of the town cemetery. The families, after three decades of uncertainty, finally had a place to come and mourn.
A large granite monument bears the names of all 24 teenagers. There lies Igor Rybakov, the brave and outspoken class president.
Beside him is Svetlana Malinina, who had dreamed of becoming a doctor. There too is Denis Kovalev, who had only just reconciled with his father.
And the other 21 students of that unusually close senior class. Anna Korneva, now gray-haired and 59 years old, visits the cemetery every week.
She never married. She devoted the rest of her life to the memory of her students.
Recently, she wrote and self-published a book about the class of 1992. In it, she gathered the personal stories of each student with great care.
The book describes their plans, their hopes, and the futures they expected to build. It was printed in a small local run.
All proceeds go toward maintaining the memorial. The surviving parents formed a support group bound by shared grief.
They meet once a month and talk about their children. They help one another carry a pain that has never really eased.
Igor Rybakov’s mother told reporters that for 30 years she lived on hope alone. Every day she believed her son might still come home.
She waited for him to knock on the door. Now there is no hope left, only a grave and an old photograph of a laughing 17-year-old boy who will never grow older.
Svetlana Malinina’s father died in his sleep one month after her burial. Doctors said his heart simply could not take the strain.
His widow believes he died of grief. First came 30 years of waiting, and then the truth.
It was too much for him. The criminal case is now officially closed and filed away in the archives.
The people responsible were finally held accountable. The truth was established. But for 24 families, there remains a permanent emptiness that no verdict can fill.
The class of ’92 became a ghost in the town’s history. It was a bright, close-knit group of kids who never made it home.
Their memory remains with the people of that small town.
