In Magadan, vandals wrote “Stalin is alive” on a monument to victims of political repression

In Magadan, unknown vandals desecrated the “Mask of Sorrow” monument by Ernst the Neizvestny, dedicated to the victims of political repression, RIA Novosti reported , citing the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The first reports of the vandals' actions appeared on Twitter: users posted pictures of the inscriptions that appeared on the memorial. On several sides of the monument it is written “Stalin is alive” in red spray paint, and a star is drawn on it.

The police said they are conducting an investigation and will make a procedural decision. Magadan Mayor Yuri Grishan called the actions of the vandals “an insult to our belief system,” RIA Kolyma-Inform reports .

“The “Mask of Sorrow” is, although sad, a symbol of Magadan, filled with memory, pain and tears. Many townspeople come here, guests from other cities always visit this memorable place and honor the memory of the repressed. It’s sad that there are people who challenge society with such antics and welcome actions that will be condemned by humanity,” he commented. “Today it is important to urgently remove the inscriptions mechanically. When the temperatures reach above-zero temperatures, we will resolve the issue with the coating.”

The mayor also promised to install a video surveillance system at the Masks of Sorrow facilities in the upper and lower zones.

The monument to the innocent victims and dead victims of political repression of the 1930s-50s, the work of the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, was opened on Krutaya Sopka near Magadan on June 12, 1996. Previously, at the foot of the hill there was a “transit” camp, from which prisoners were transported to Kolyma.

In November, the granddaughter of Nikolai Zyryanov, an employee of the Tomsk city department of the NKVD, wrote a letter to the great-grandson of one of the people he shot, Denis Karagodin, and apologized to him. The man reported this in a blog dedicated to the investigation of the murder of his great-grandfather Stepan Karagodin, who died during the years of Soviet repression.

In March, the Memorial human rights center presented the project “Everyone’s Personal File” to help Russians who want to find out the fate of repressed relatives. The project collects evidence about Gulag prisoners and accepts photographs, documents and things from places of detention.

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