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An unknown person has decapitated a bust of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in a park near Moscow with a sledgehammer, Russian media and police sources reported on Sunday. “On Saturday, in a park in Zvenigorod (a city 40 kilometers west of the Russian capital, editor’s note), a man in an abnormal state cut off the head of a bust of Stalin with a sledgehammer,” an anonymous police source told the Ria Novosti news agency.
The suspect also allegedly smashed a bust of Lenin, tearing off his chin.
The press service of the Moscow region police told Ria Novosti that the suspect was on the run and was being sought by law enforcement. A Telegram channel covering local news posted a video showing the alleged perpetrator approaching a monument with a blunt object and striking it hard. Laughter and shouts in Russian can be heard in the video, although they are not clearly understood. Ostorozhno Novosti media outlet posted a photo of a bust of Stalin with his head lying next to his shoulders.
The suspect also allegedly smashed a bust of Lenin, tearing off his chin, in the same park, according to another photo provided by this source. According to this media, this monument to the glory of Stalin had been installed by a group of activists during the summer of 2023 without the agreement of the local authorities, who had not removed it, however, despite protests from residents against its presence. In Russia, the presentation of the Soviet dictator, responsible for gigantic repressions that left millions dead, is ambivalent.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin occasionally condemns the excesses of Stalinism, the Kremlin’s current policy is generally to ignore them. At the same time, the government loudly glorifies the geopolitical and military power of the USSR in a narrative aimed at galvanizing the population, particularly since the attack on Ukraine. The victims of political repression are reduced to a bare minimum in history textbooks, where Stalin is primarily presented as the hero who enabled the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler.
Those who denounce this approach fall into the authorities’ crosshairs. Memorial, the major NGO that records both Soviet repression and that of the current regime, was banned at the end of 2021.
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