Museum presents unique icons embroidered with fishbone in exile in Magadan

A unique image, embroidered with a fishbone is being kept at Berezhany regional museum. The words “O Mother of God, save us!” are embroidered on the icon. Below is the inscription “In remembrance from the prison” and the date – “20 May 1949”, as reported by the website “Berezhany and Berezhanshchina.”

The icon was donated to the museum by Rosalia Riga (1914-2004), who embroidered it in exile in Magadan. A woman was born in the village of Ray. She finished school in Kalush, now Ivano-Frankivsk region, and got a profession of a dressmaker. In 1932 she got married to Gregory Riga from Vedrkhnya village, gave birth to sons Roman and Igor. On the way to her parents-in-law they called on Bogdan Yatskiv – a referent of the Security Service of the Ukrainian nationalists in the Carpathians. When his wife fell ill, Rosalia brought her to the hospital of Kalush under forged documents. Gregory was shot in 1946. In early 1949 Rosalia Riga was arrested. She was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment. She was released at will after the death of Stalin - in 1956. Then she returned to Ray. She worked in Berezhany at the vegetable-drying plant.

The icon is sized 12 by 12 cm. It is embroidered with threads from scarves and women's underwear. Needles were banned in prison. The women embroidered with bones from fish that men from a nearby camp passed to them. “If a prison learned that she was embroidering the Theotokos, my mother would have received another five years’ term. After leaving the prison she hid the icon in the sewing machine. After her mother's death, no one could not find a relic. Last year it was found that my mother gave it to the museum,” says 83-year-old Roman Riga, Rosalie’s son. The history of icons is published in the local newspaper by Fr Yevhen Zapletnyuk. “A woman brought home only what was the most expensive - an icon of the Virgin, who prayed,” says Fr Yevhen.