"They held a German for three years and then illegally laid down their lives on a businessman's land." A monument to a WWII soldier's grave was demolished to make way for the construction of cottages near St. Petersburg.
Destroyed memorial in the village of Otradny attracted the attention of a war correspondent Roman Saponkova.
According to him, the granite monument stood in the place where the front line of defense used to be. According to official documents, underneath it is 300 dead soldiers were buried in a mass grave from April to May 1942. The names of 199 remain unknown.
The war correspondent noted that a few steps from the mass grave under construction cottage community. According to Saponkov, the monument was demolished to make way for development.
«The memorial ended up in the path of a cottage village, so it was dug out by an excavator and taken to the other end of the village, — he said. — "And the fact that young men and women laid themselves to rest here 80 years ago—well, what can you do? The cadastral map might even show illegal occupation. And then, from a legal standpoint, it might turn out that Soviet soldiers seized a piece of capitalist land, laid themselves to rest illegally, and remained there for 80 years."
The Otradny administration explained to the war correspondent that the monument was removed "under supervision." It is planned to be relocated to a designated area where there will be many other monuments. The fate of the mass grave remains unknown.
A few days ago here I visited A search party. During selective excavations on the site of the future settlement, they discovered the bodies of two dead soldiers at a depth of up to one and a half meters, two artillery shells, and two grenades.
«And all this goodness in an area of 2x2 meters, — Roman Saponkov clarifies. — That is, [the officials and builders] did not raise the guys, they did not carry out demining, but for some reason the monument, which is adjacent to the cottage village, got in their way».
The military correspondent emphasized that the law prohibits construction work upon discovery of the unburied remains of soldiers killed defending the Fatherland. In this regard, he and a team of activists intend to appeal to the prosecutor's office.
Video: Roman Saponkov
