Tallinn and Khimki

Removal of a soviet war memorial in Tallinn

The Bronze Soldier , the Tallinn statue commemorating Soviet soldiers killed during the second world has now been re-erected in a military cemetery. Its removal from a square in central Tallinn precipitated unrest from ethnic Russians. Three days of rioting resulted in one death, more than 150 injuries and over 1,000 arrests. The Estonian government justified the move by saying its location near a busy intersection was not a proper place for a war grave. Critics viewed the move as a government pandering to nationalists.

The removal was greeted with outrage by the Russian government . Both houses of Russian parliament urged Vladimir Putin to break off relation with Estonia; MPs accused the Estonian government of fascism and calling the statue's removal "blasphemous and barbarous".

The Russian protests continue: Yesterday ITAR-TASS carried a report of a visit to Tallinn of a delegation of Russian parliamentarians: First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky accused the Estonian authorities of brutality towards protesters.

Meanwhile, Yury Luzhkov , the Mayor of Moscow has proposed a boycott of Estonia. ““The administration of Moscow and the Moscow City Duma are proposing a boycott of everything connected with Estonia for the actions it has taken in relation to our Soldier and the graves of our fighters,” he stated, adding that the Estonian government “has shown its most negative face, even Fascist, it can be said.”

So we have a situation where the Estonian government relocated a soviet war memorial, the bodies of soviet servicemen buried at the monument will be re-interred with care, Russians are up in arms.

Interestingly...........

Removal of a soviet war memorial in Moscow (and Stavropol too?)

On 19 April The remains of World War II pilots were exhumed from a monument at along a highway at Khimki to widen the road and prevent prostitutes from desecrating the site. The six bodies, however, seem to have vanished .The Khimki administration, which authorised the reburial, said it did not know where the remains were, but thought they might be at the morgue in Skhodnya, a nearby town. Vyacheslav Nyrkov, director of Ritual, the Khimki agency that exhumed the remains, refused to comment on their whereabouts.

Dozens of Communist supporters held a protest over the reburial at the site on Sunday.“These ashes belong to heroes who defended our motherland. They shouldn’t have been dug up just because someone doesn’t like the monument at this place,” said one of the protesters, Pavel Tarasov. Friday.Tarasov, an aide to Communist State Duma Deputy Valery Rashkin, accused authorities of double standards, citing the current uproar over Estonia’s decision to remove a Soviet war memorial and exhume soldiers there. “At least in Estonia this is largely covered by the media so people can come out and voice their protest, but in Russia all is done sneakily,” said Olga Ivanova, another participant in the Sunday protest.

Also, on 18 April Duma vice speaker Vladimir Katrenko asked a parliamentary question to RF Procurator General Yuriy Chaika concerning the decision of the Stavropol' authorities to tear down a monument to Cossacks who fought in World War II. Katrenko told journalists that such actions by Russian officials were especially troubling given their criticism of Estonia. (The above link cites a news source in Russian which is beyond the capabilities of someone who got an O level in Russian nearly 28 years ago!)