Do not know not ours – Newspaper Kommersant No. 17 (7462) dated 01/31/2023
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A memorial to Finnish soldiers who died in battle with the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War was dismantled in the Leningrad Region. The monument at the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Primorsk, the former Finnish city of Koivisto, was demolished during the days of celebrations dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the blockade of Leningrad. The Finnish media linked the dismantling with Vladimir Putin’s speech that “representatives of many European countries” were involved in the blockade. However, Kommersant discovered that the prosecutor’s office had launched the process of demolishing the memorial back in 2020.
The Finnish city of Koivisto was ceded to the USSR as a result of the Soviet-Finnish War (1939–1940). During the Great Patriotic War, the city was again occupied by Finnish troops. The soldiers of both armies and civilians who died in battles were buried at the church of St. Mary Magdalene, while 102 buried Finnish soldiers were given nominal crosses. After the war, Koivisto became Soviet again; it was renamed Primorsk, and the building of the church was rebuilt as a house of culture. Probably, it was during this period that the Finnish burial and crosses were demolished. The remains of Soviet soldiers were transferred to the city memorial, says Irina Kolotova, former director of the Primorsky Museum of Local Lore.
In 1992, the Finnish society “Koivisto” – the descendants of the former residents of the city – with the permission of the local authorities, erected a monument “Cross and Sail” near the church. The cross meant the memory of all those who died, and the sail meant “hope for good relations between Russia and Finland.” Already at that time, the attitude of the local population towards him “was ambiguous,” the local history museum noted. Nevertheless, veterans of the Soviet-Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars “definitely” gave the go-ahead for its installation.
In 2019, the Koivisto Society decided to clearly mark the boundaries of the burial place of Finnish soldiers. In the place where 102 crosses once stood, they planted decorative bushes and surrounded them with granite columns. Nearby, seven small steles with the names of the military were installed. The text “To the Fallen Heroes of Koivisto” was engraved on the main stone. It was later changed to “The Fallen Citizens of Koivisto” in connection with the Russian law prohibiting the glorification of soldiers of the Nazi army and its allies. The “Cross and Sail” that stood at this place was moved closer to the local history museum.
In recent years, a controversy has begun in the region about the appropriateness of a monument to Finnish soldiers. The initiative group of ten people was the most active: they collected about 300 signatures under an appeal to demolish the monument and sent it to the presidential administration and the Ministry of Defense. One of the leaders of the group, Vladimir Pinchuk, told Kommersant that the memorial was erected “for revanchist purposes as part of the information war” of Finland against Russia. “We do not argue that the church had a military burial. But initially, according to our data, it was 10-15 meters farther. That is, when people go to the memorial, they walk on the bones,” Mr. Pinchuk says indignantly. Finally, the activist claims that next to the memorial there is allegedly a burial place of Red Army soldiers, which “the Finns, presumably, destroyed in 1941.” “Now the Finnish memorial comes to the border of the burial place of the Red Army, which, in our opinion, is unacceptable,” concluded Mr. Pinchuk.
The activist told Kommersant that during the installation of the memorial, “25 Finnish military personnel were not checked for their involvement in crimes that do not have a statute of limitations.” “The talk that the Nazis are allegedly buried there has no evidence,” said Irina Kolotova, the former director of the Primorsky Local History Museum.
On the night of February 24, 2020, unknown people desecrated the memorial – they painted over the names on the granite slabs and drew a red star. The paint from the memorial was then washed off by order of the municipal administration. And in March 2020, the prosecutor’s office checked the “appeals of citizens” (Vladimir Pinchuk claims that this is not about his group). The department came to the conclusion that the “improvement work” – the installation of the memorial – was carried out without the permission of the Committee on Culture of the Leningrad Region. The prosecutor’s office sent requests to eliminate the violations, but the local administration did not respond, after which the department turned to the Vyborgsky District Court. Mr. Pinchuk’s group did not participate in the process. The defendant was Korisstroy LLC, which was the contractor for the installation of the memorial. At the meeting, it turned out that he did not have the necessary license. In September 2022, the court recognized the memorial as an illegal building and ordered it to be dismantled within two months. At the same time, granite tablets with the names of the buried were removed in March 2022.
The memorial was dismantled only last week, which did not go unnoticed in Finland. Ilta-Sanomat noted that the monument was demolished after Vladimir Putin arrived in St. Petersburg on January 18. Russia, he said during a meeting with veterans, “due to a certain tolerance” did not remind that representatives of very many European countries participated in the blockade of Leningrad and committed crimes. “Now, due to the general situation, the Finnish media are reporting that the monument was demolished after Putin’s visit. This is a distortion, I think,” Irina Kolotova said to Kommersant. Of course, here the Finnish side did not finish the job either. They had to agree on such a memorial. When they came and said that they had received permission, they had an agreement with the region about the boundaries of the memorial, but not about him. But, of course, it’s a pity for the Finnish side: they collected money, everything was done at their expense.”
In a conversation with Kommersant, an employee of Korisstroy said that the monument was not damaged during the dismantling, now it is in the company’s warehouse. The granite tiles remaining at the site of the memorial are planned to be removed later, when the ice melts. The company’s CEO Alexander Korotun declined to comment.
“Kommersant” sent a request to the administration of the municipality of Primorskoye urban settlement, where they recommended contacting the press service of the Vyborgsky district of the Leningrad region. They reported that the installation of the memorial slabs was not agreed with the local administration.
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