Petersburg legislature will propose to adopt a law on the evacuation of Soviet monuments

The Committee on Legislation of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg approved a bill on the evacuation of memorials to Soviet soldiers to be demolished from the territory of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland. After approval by the Chamber, the draft law will be sent to the State Duma.

The document proposes to supplement Art. 59 of the law “Fundamentals of the Legislation of the Russian Federation on Culture” with a clause that “in the event of a threat of damage or destruction of Russian cultural and historical values ​​outside the Russian Federation, the state takes measures to dismantle them and evacuate them to their homeland.” It is also stipulated that destroyed or damaged cultural and historical values ​​outside the country, if it is impossible to dismantle and (or) evacuate them, are subject to restoration in Russia. The conditions and procedure for evacuation and recovery, as conceived by the deputies, will have to be determined by the government.

“Logistic ties have been maintained between Russia and neighboring countries, so there should not be any problems with the transportation of memorials,” said Alexander Chebykin, one of the authors of the initiative, a deputy from United Russia. At the same time, the parliamentarian did not rule out the possibility of exporting monuments through the territories of other countries bordering the Baltic States and Poland. “Where exactly they will be recreated will depend on the desire of the regions and future provisions of the legislation,” Chebykin explained.

The explanatory note to the project lists cases of dismantling and transferring Soviet monuments. In particular, on August 8, 2022, the sculpture “World Peace” was dismantled in Helsinki, and at the end of August, the demolition of the monument to the liberators of Latvia and Riga from the Nazi invaders was completed in Riga. On the same day, the monument to the soldiers of the Red Army, who liberated it from the Nazis during the Second World War, was dismantled in the Polish city of Brzeg. In total, the Polish authorities are going to demolish about 60 Soviet monuments, the deputies counted.