"So that it will be preserved as a memory for all descendants": A human rights activist from Ulyanovsk saved a memorial plaque from Andrei Sakharov's house.
The memorial plaque, which was located on the house on Telmana Street where Sakharov lived during the Great Patriotic War, has been transferred to Moscow—to the house-museum of the human rights scholar.
"An agreement and a deed of transfer will be signed stating that the plaque will be kept on permanent display. Since no one in Ulyanovsk wanted to take it for safekeeping, I'm transferring it to Moscow so that it will be preserved as a keepsake for all descendants." - told Igor Toporkov, saved the sign.
The building on Telmana Street had no protected status and was demolished in 2021 to make way for a new building. Toporkov appealed to the Ulyanovsk Region Governor. Alexey Russkikh The building was to be recognized as a historical landmark, but the official ignored the initiative. The authorities also refused to re-hang Andrei Sakharov's plaque on the buildings on the street bearing his name.
Sakharov was a Soviet physicist and one of the key human rights activists of the last century. He spoke out against political repression and restrictions on freedoms in the USSR. He was one of the founders of the Memorial Society.
Public figures and researchers note a shift in government policy regarding understanding the Soviet past, pointing to the dismantling of monuments to victims of political repression and the closure of specialized museums.
Political scientist Alexey Makarkin connects these processes with Russia’s final “farewell to Europe” and the formation of a new ideological course in which there is no room for reflection on the internal tragedies of the past.
In January, unknown individuals tore down a memorial plaque from the house where the journalist was killed. Anna PolitkovskayaVarious activist groups regularly restored the plaque, but vandals continued to tear it down. The most recent attempt—the twenty-eighth—to hang the memorial was made in March.
