Vologda Oblast Governor Filimonov praised the model of the Stalin monument. Residents of Cherepovets oppose its installation.
Governor Vologda Oblast Georgy Filimonov supported the project for a monument to Joseph Stalin and the Soviet metallurgist To Ivan Bardin, which is planned to be installed in Cherepovets for Metallurgist's Day on July 19. However, some residents of the region opposed the monument's installation, recalling the repressions and crimes of the Stalin era.
Filimonov visited the Moscow studio where the sculpture group is being created and posted his impressions on his Telegram channel.
"The scale and expressiveness of the images of I.V. Stalin and I.P. Bardin—the men who brought the metallurgical plant to Cherepovets—is already becoming clear."- wrote governor.
The monument will be dedicated to the history of the construction of the city's largest metallurgical plant. The composition will feature Joseph Stalin and Ivan Bardin—a Soviet metallurgist, vice president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and one of the architects of the country's metallurgical industry.
The idea of erecting a monument has sparked criticism among residents of Cherepovets and other cities in the Vologda region. Opponents of the project point out that Stalin's role in industrialization cannot be considered separately from political repression and mass terror. One resident of the region wrote on social media that the authorities "didn't care about people's feelings"
"During their tenures in high positions, Stalin and Molotov signed a great many documents, including those commencing the construction of many enterprises. But no one thought of erecting monuments to them," she noted.
Previously a Vologda historian Ivan Dzhukha in an open letter to the governor reminded about places in Vologda associated with the crimes of the Stalin period.
The new monument will be the fourth to Stalin erected in the region in recent years. According to the "We Can Explain" project, as of May of last year, there were 120 monuments to Stalin, of which 105 appeared during Vladimir Putin's presidency. Only in 2025 in Russian regions have opened 17 memorial sites, dedicated to Stalin.
