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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia | |
| Participants in the 'Return of Names' action remembered the victims of Stalin's repressions | |
| 2023-10-23 | |
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Since 1991, October 30 has been celebrated in Russia as the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression. In 2021, in particular, residents and guests of Sochi laid flowers on this day at the monument to victims of repression. The era of the 1930s in the USSR can be compared with modern times, when people end up in prison for their political views, Sochi residents interviewed by the Caucasian Knot pointed out. Today at 15.20 Moscow time in Volgograd, at the foot of the monument to victims of repression “Going to Heaven,” 10 participants of the all-Russian action “Return of Names” gathered: activists, members of the Yabloko party and the Memorial initiative group. They laid flowers and posters at the foot of the monument with the inscriptions: “I don’t need a dictatorship,” “Article 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation . Stand for it to the death,” “Every person has the right to hold his own opinion.” For half an hour, activists took turns reading out the names of the repressed, their details, and the time of their arrest and execution. These were mainly the names of Stalingrad residents - engineers and factory workers sentenced to capital punishment in the second half of the 1930s, as reported by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent who was present at the scene of the action. Activists of the Volgograd Regional Association of Victims of Political Repression restored the names of 250 thousand repressed fellow countrymen; the rehabilitation process was completed only by 2016. “We are returning the names of citizens who died in the meat grinder that the Bolsheviks staged for supposedly lofty goals, which were pure Satanism,” co-organizer of the action, member of the federal bureau of the Yabloko party, Alexander Efimov, told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent. Civil activist Kirill Vinnikov said that the monument to People's Artist of Russia Viktor Fetisov "Going into the Sky" was not chosen by chance as the location for the action. “This is a monument to those who died innocently. This is also a monument to those who came for one, and then came for them. If the rules of the game are established, when you can kill your political opponents, you never have to be sure that they won’t come for you. About this is often forgotten,” he told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent. The monument to the victims of political repression “Going to Heaven” was unveiled on December 24, 2008 at the intersection of Chuikov and Naumova streets. The monument was designed by People's Artist of Russia Viktor Fetisov. This composition consists of three granite slabs. One of them depicts people going into the sky - repressed citizens. On another, a small group of survivors returns from the Gulag camps. On the horizontal part of the monument there is an inscription: “To the victims of political repression.” The dates “1917-1956” are inscribed on the back of the monument. In August 2022, the condition of the monument and the threat of its destruction alarmed Volgograd activists. Activist Tamara Grodnikova said that there were repressed relatives in her family, but her relatives did not tell Tamara their names, “because they were afraid.” “In those terrible years, people lost their lives because of their political convictions, because they saw their lives and the future of their children differently, because their opinions did not reflect the line of the only party at that time, because they loved their homeland in a to their own. They were called enemies of the people. But the people did not make decisions about their fate. There was no democracy in the country, there was a dictatorship," Tamara Grodnikova told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. The activist noted that modern society has not fully realized its tragic past and “has failed to recognize crimes as crimes.” “Without admitting their mistakes, the people and the country cannot develop. Degradation sets in,” she said. “Every day we see how the past is knocking on our modern life, how the past has broken through into events in Ukraine, how the past has broken through now in Israel, we see that human life is again worthless. We see that the politicians of many states, including of our state, they talk about lofty matters, about geopolitics, forgetting about the fate of the common man, considering him raw material for their political games,” said Alexander Efimov. The culmination of political terror in the country occurred at the end of the 1930s, but it began in the First World War and in the Civil War, when human life finally became devalued, said participant Andrei Bachman . “Wars are scary because of humanitarian devaluation. Contemporaries need to realize this and finally put an end to wars and repression,” he said. The action took place without provocation. Passersby showed no interest in what was happening at the monument; there were no police nearby. The event ended at 16.00 Moscow time. According to the organizers, the action was not approved by the mayor's office. | |
| Posted by:badanov |