Hello!

This is Svetlana Bronnikova, a journalist with the independent media outlet "7x7."

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, cases of disappearing monuments dedicated to victims of Soviet-era repression have become increasingly frequent across Russian cities. Even before the war, according to human rights activist Irina Flige, these monuments served as sites of solidarity with modern-day political prisoners. When Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, Russians began bringing flowers to these memorials following missile strikes on Ukrainian cities. As a result, the events of today were superimposed onto the events of yesterday, bringing them into sharp, contemporary focus.

"A place of memory is always a dialogue. But it can be a cultural dialogue, or it can be a war against memory. Today, the war against memory has intensified. Memorials have become a battlefield," Flige said.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Tomsk city hall demolished a "Monument of Grief" because of a private garage

On April 19, the Tomsk City Administration published a post stating the need to fence off part of the Memorial Plaza for Victims of Political Repression. Officials claimed that a garage located near the square was in danger of collapsing. Authorities promised to reinforce the slope, after first transferring all objects from the square to a relevant department for "safekeeping." These "objects" included the Stone of Grief and memorials to repressed Lithuanians, Latvians, Poles, Estonians, and Kalmyks.

However, the monument sits more than 50 meters away from the edge of the slope. It would have been possible to fence off the garage rather than the entire square.

Shortly after, the Tomsk administration deleted the post about the works in the square without explanation.

The local news outlet Vtomske.ru, citing a local resident named Pavel and one of the workers, reported that the fencing of the square and the removal of the monuments actually began on April 18 — a day before the administration announced it. According to Pavel, the monuments weren't just dismantled; they were smashed with an excavator bucket:

"I was walking by here yesterday evening and wondered what was going on. Those monuments were standing right there—thud, thud. A tractor was there, they were breaking them with the bucket, just smashing them. I think there was even more than one tractor..."

The man added that he began filming the scene, but individuals identifying themselves as FSB officers confiscated his phone and forced him to delete the footage. They also questioned Pavel on who had asked him to film.

Ksenia Fadeeva, former head of the Navalny Headquarters in Tomsk, recorded a video stating that the local administration likely fenced off the square specifically to remove the monuments: "I would be very happy to be wrong, but I think the mayor's office is lying. Even if there really is a falling garage, why was it necessary to uproot all the memorial stones? [...] All of this looks like an attempt to destroy the memory of the monstrous crimes committed against our people in the last century."

Fadeeva also noted that the square is situated on the grounds of a former NKVD prison, where excavations previously uncovered "pits characteristic of mass graves" filled with construction debris. Since the collapse of the USSR, citizens have held commemorative events in the square; in recent years, they began coming there to "protest modern repressions and remember those killed by the regime currently in power in Russia."

Under Fadeeva's video on Instagram, many sympathizers spoke out: "The entire Tomsk region is a place of exile. How many Germans were there, in the city and the region? More than any other nation..." and "They are doing this in a city literally built on the bones of the repressed," and "Someone wants to rewrite history. That's all."

There were also comments from those whose families were victims of repression: "As a descendant of the repressed, I simply burst into tears reading this news..." and "What a rock bottom! I'm a descendant of the repressed living in Karaganda, where Karlag [Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp] was. I understand your feelings," and "My great-grandfather was repressed in Tomsk and shot — he was Polish. The demolition of the square was expected, as is the future of the NKVD museum. I also came to this square to honor his memory since there is no grave," and "My great-grandfather died of hunger on the Solovetsky Islands. We will never forget or forgive this."

According to officials, the monuments will be returned to their places. However, there is little confidence in this, especially since the fences blocked the view of whether the memorial stones remained intact after being "dismantled." Practice shows that anything could have happened to them.

Officials justify the removal of memorials through "vandalism" and other pretexts

Across the country, local authorities are destroying monuments to the repressed. Officials are even "removing" the memorial plaques of the "Posledny adres" project (translated into English: «The Last Address», small metal plaques placed by activists on the walls of buildings to remember the people who lived there before they were arrested and killed. Each plaque shows the person's name, their job, and the date they died). Municipal authorities do this under various pretexts to hide the true reason for the demolitions.

• "Vandalism": The most common explanation. Officials rarely name specific culprits. Information about investigations is either non-existent or withheld even upon request. Sometimes, officials claim they simply don't know who removed the monuments or where they are. This already happened in Tomsk: in 2022, a memorial to repressed Poles was damaged and a plaque in their memory was torn down for the second time, but no perpetrators were found in either case.
  
  
• "Restoration Work": Dismantling is often explained by the need to restore the monuments, yet their subsequent fate remains unclear. Inquiries into who decided on the restoration and where the dismantled objects are located usually go unanswered. This was the fate of a monument at the Levashovo Memorial Cemetery in St. Petersburg, erected in memory of Poles repressed in Leningrad during the Great Terror.
  
  
• "Illegality": Some memorial signs are dismantled under the pretext that they were installed without the necessary permits. Authorities claim the objects are not being destroyed but are being "taken for storage," arguing that the memory of the victims is already immortalized in other forms — such as general memorial walls.
  
  
• Lack of Official Status: Memorials created with private funds or by public organizations often fall outside the system of cultural heritage protection. This allows authorities to refuse to view their demolition as a violation of the law. A similar situation unfolded in the Prikamye region, where authorities refused to open a criminal case regarding the destruction of a monument to "special settlers" because it had been built using private savings.
  
  
• "Beyond Repair": Sometimes officials claim that monuments are "not subject to restoration" or may have collapsed on their own. It is often the case that the administration had previously refused to restore them. A similar incident occurred in the settlement of Rudnik near Vorkuta, where a fallen monument to Polish GULAG prisoners was found. Police claimed it fell due to bad weather.