Russia commemorates victims of Stalin’s terror
The Kremlin’s version of history often glosses over Stalin’s crimes, and public commemoration of Soviet-era repression is considered unpatriotic, theAFP.
The “Return of Names” event was organized by the Nobel Memorial Prize winner, a rights and historical remembrance group that folded weeks before Moscow launched its 2022 military campaign. Each year, the event sees people take turns reading the names of people executed during Stalin’s Terror between 1936 and 1938.
In Moscow, it is traditionally held at the monument to the victims of the Solovetsky Stone, located opposite the KGB headquarters on Lubyanka, now occupied by its modern successor the FSB. AFP journalists reported that the square was surrounded by metal barriers with a heavy police presence.
Oleg Orlov, co-president of Memorial, who was recently fined for speaking out against the campaign in Ukraine, attended the ceremony.
Several Western ambassadors, including the United States envoy, laid flowers. The Memorial broadcast the reading of the names live from Moscow and other Russian cities such as Volgograd and Novosibirsk, in Siberia, and from abroad.
(reuters)
2023-10-29 10:46:51
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