2024-07-22 12:37:04
An unknown person decapitated, using a hammer, a bust of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, placed in a park near Moscow, Russian media and police sources reported today, AFP reported, quoted by BTA.
“On Saturday in a park in Zvenigorod (a city forty kilometers west of the Russian capital, note ed.) a man in an excited state detached the head of a bust of Stalin with a hammer,” an anonymous police source told the RIA Novosti news agency.
The press service of the police in the Moscow region informed RIA that the suspect is hiding and is being sought by the law enforcement agencies.
A local news channel on Telegram aired a video showing the alleged perpetrator of this act approaching the monument with a blunt object and striking it hard.
Laughter and shouts in Russian are heard, but their meaning is not clearly understood.
The media “Ostorozhno Novosti” published a photo of the damaged bust of Stalin.
The suspect also allegedly smashed a bust of Lenin in the same park, dislodging his signature chin, according to another photo provided by this source.
“Ostrozhno Novosti” reports that the monument to Stalin was installed by a group of activists in the summer of 2023 without the consent of local authorities, who did not remove it, however, despite protests from local residents.
In today’s Russia, the portrayal of the Soviet dictator responsible for gigantic repression that caused the deaths of millions is ambiguous.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has occasionally denounced the extremes of Stalinism, but the policy line followed by the Kremlin today generally misses them.
At the same time, the government loudly extols the geopolitical and military power of the USSR in a narrative intended to galvanize the population, especially after the attack on Ukraine.
In history textbooks, the victims of political repression are minimized, and Stalin is presented above all as a hero, thanks to whom the victory of the Soviet Union against Hitler was achieved.
Critics of this approach fall into the sights of the authorities. Memorial, the major non-governmental organization documenting both Soviet repressions and those of the current regime, was banned at the end of 2021.