Collection begins to build Karelia chapel in honor of children who died in 2016 storm

A nationwide fundraiser for constructing a chapel in the village of Kudama on the shore of Lake Syamozero in Russia’s northwestern Karelia Province in honor of the fourteen children who drowned in the lake last summer was announced on Tuesday, reports TASS.

“The initiative to erect a chapel near the cross that was set up after the tragedy was made by the parents of the children who perished. The proposal was supported by the head of the republic… Today we are announcing a nationwide fundraiser for its construction,” the press release reads.

“It will be a small, wooden chapel. The parents have approved and ratified the project. The chapel is planned to be built by the cross which was established on the 40th day memorial of the tragedy… on the place where the lake began to wash the dead bodies ashore, where the locals discovered them,” said Marina Kabatyuk, the press secretary for the head of Karelia Arthur Parfenchkov.

On June 18, 2016, members of the “Park-Hotel Syamozero” children’s recreation camp who had arrived to Karelia from Moscow ran into a heavy storm on the lake. 47 children and four adult instructors were in three boats, which capsized and sank due to foul weather. 14 children drowned as a result of the storm.

Source: Pravoslavie.ru