Monument to Ivan the Terrible installed in the centre of Vologda overnight

Residents of the northwestern Russian city of Vologda awoke on Monday to discover that a 9-metre-tall monument to Ivan the Terrible had been installed on its central square overnight, according to state-affiliated Russian daily newspaper Kommersant.

The square, which is closed for renovations, is scheduled to reopen on Tuesday to coincide with National Unity Day, a public holiday in Russia that celebrates the expulsion of Polish forces from Moscow at the end of the so-called Time of Troubles in the 17th century.

Tsar Ivan IV, better known in the West as Ivan the Terrible, ruled Russia from 1533 until his death in 1584, and is chiefly remembered today for his expansion of Russian lands into Siberia, as well as for his extreme cruelty and his brutal repression of the boyars, or noblemen, whom he saw as a threat to his power.

The driving force behind the new monument was regional Governor Georgy Filimonov, an ultra-nationalist politician who has described Ivan the Terrible as a “multiplier of Russian lands,” a “symbol of the Russian world,” and a “conquering tsar in a good sense”.

Filliminov has gained notoriety for his Mao suits and his outspoken praise for Soviet dictators Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, and raised eyebrows in December when he unveiled a statue to the latter in Vologda while urging those present to “cherish” Stalin’s memory.

Recent interest in rehabilitating discredited Russian historical figures has not been limited to Vologda, however, with the honouring of brutal autocrats and dictators now a nationwide phenomenon, one perhaps most notably demonstrated when a wall sculpture depicting Stalin that had been destroyed in the 1960s was restored to a Moscow metro station in May.