Estonian authorities urged to dismantle Soviet monuments
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The Estonian authorities called on the leadership of the cities of Narva and Sillamäe to allow the dismantling of Soviet monuments, informs TASS with reference to the Estonian National Broadcasting (ERR) portal.
In particular, the State Chancellery called on the Sillamäe authorities to agree to the dismantling of the monument to the Unknown Soldier, opened in 1975. A similar appeal, as noted, was sent to the authorities of Narva: in the city bordering Russia, they want to remove two more monuments with Soviet symbols.
ERR January 3 also informed about the reburial of the remains of 830 people, originally buried under the monuments of the Soviet era. According to the director of the Estonian War Museum Hellar Lill, 20 military graves were removed, which were considered monuments of the Red Army.
According to the Estonian authorities, by the end of November, 56 monuments of the Soviet era had been dismantled in the republic.
In August, a monument to the Soviet T-34 tank was removed from the pedestal in Narva and sent to the Estonian War Museum. The “Narva Tank” (installed in 1970 at the place where the advancing units of the Red Army crossed the river in 1944 and broke through the Nazi defenses) is the last monument of this kind surviving on the territory of Estonia, Interfax noted. The dismantling of the monument tank was preceded by a statement by the Prime Minister of the Republic, Kai Kallas, about the demolition of all monuments to Soviet soldiers by the end of the year.
On August 23, the dismantling of the monument to Soviet soldiers, the liberators of Latvia and Riga from the Nazi invaders, also began in Riga, the Delfi portal wrote earlier. Moscow condemned this decision. According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, such actions are a manifestation of neo-Nazism.
At the end of August, the Russian Investigative Committee warned that the removal of Soviet monuments in the Baltic countries would affect the state of bilateral relations, and Moscow would take asymmetric measures in response.
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