"For the first time, the government has stopped hiding its true face."
Valery Fadeyev, head of the Human Rights Council, proposed removing the Solovetsky Stone from the FSB building on Lubyanka Square. He made this statement in a lengthy interview with RBC. Fadeyev believes that the authorities have already "demonstrated an anti-Stalinist stance," and that protests at the Solovetsky Stone are "a reproach to those who work at Lubyanka Square." He added that people should come not to Lubyanka Square, but to the "Wall of Sorrow" erected by the authorities on Sakharov Avenue in 2017.
The editor of NeMoskva commented on the words of the HRC member project Immortal Barack Andrey Shalaev:
Today, a few days before Human Rights Day, Valery Fadeyev gave a lengthy interview to RBC. One of the topics was preserving the memory of the victims of repression and sites of remembrance. Fadeyev rather crudely divided memory into "human" and "state." For the first time in many years, a government official openly outlined not only the principles of his work but also the general state policy regarding the memory of state terror.
His proposal to move the Solovetsky Stone from Lubyanka Square in Moscow to another location attracted particular attention. He expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that people whose relatives suffered during the repressions continue to visit the FSB building, recalling those who perpetrated this terror. He also lamented that no one comes to the monument on Sakharov Avenue, unveiled by Putin. Fadeyev also criticized projects commemorating the victims of the terror, such as "Last Address." It's worth noting that he heads not only the country's Human Rights Council but also the Commission on Rehabilitation. The interview is saturated with hatred for these individuals and their family memories.
It's hard to say there was anything new in the official's words. But for the first time, the authorities stopped hiding their true colors. The Gulag Museum was closed, dozens of monuments to the victims of the repressions were destroyed, and iron statues of Felix and Stalin were erected in their place.
I read this text and Galich’s voice kept sounding in my head:
We won't forget that laughter. And that boredom! We'll remember everyone—name by name!—who raised their hand!
Something terrible is happening in Russia today. Contrary to the country's laws, the rights and memories of those who have already suffered at the hands of the state are being trampled. It's as if they were to be shot a second time and then silenced. The war on the past is unfolding against the backdrop of a real war, and many might say that now is not the time to dwell on the stones on Lubyanka Square. But I insist: it all begins with rewriting history.
Yesterday they replaced textbooks, today they're destroying memorial sites, and tomorrow they'll come for the children. The only remaining resistance is family memory. It's important for us to speak out loud about state terror, to examine its lessons so that these mistakes aren't repeated. Thirty years ago, we thought we'd been vaccinated. But it turned out to be a placebo. Time and again, society must work through this disease. Will the country overcome the current round of repression? Perhaps. But we'll have to squeeze out the lessons of the past, bit by bit.
In the meantime, Galich again:
And so the slander and disputes have died down, It's as if eternity has taken a day off... And marauders stand over the coffin