Translated material
Estonian authorities recommended demolishing 244 Soviet monuments
The working group at the State Chancellery of Estonia recommended to demolish 244 Soviet monuments, 56 of which are already dismantled, the Estonian television and radio broadcasting company ERR reports .
In total, the working group was mapping 322 monuments. 74 of them are recognized as neutral, and the fate of four more memorials will be decided during the public discussion. For example, the members of the commission have not yet been able to form an assessment of the Maaryamyae memorial in Tallinn, but they considered that "monuments to divisions of the Red Army participating in the defense of Tallinn can be separated from a holistic interpretation of the complex and should be removed." In addition, the authorities have not yet formed an assessment of the monument to a bronze soldier installed on Tynismyagi in 1947 and transferred to a military cemetery in 2007.
Several monuments will be preserved, for example, the Tahumardi memorial on the island of Saarema and the Mathetic grave located nearby, where 330 fighters who died during the Second World War were buried. The monument to an unknown soldier, opened in Sallamyae in 1975, will be eliminated, since the authorities consider it a "red", that is, "a propaganda object erected for ideological purposes."
- In August, Estonia authorities dismantled the monument to the Soviet T-34 tank in Narva, established in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
- Estonia authorities classified the work of the state office according to the monuments of the Soviet era against the backdrop of a decision to remove the monuments of the USSR era from public space.