Remembering is not recommended: how the authorities are restricting the memory of repressions
October 30th has been celebrated in Russia as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Political Repression since 1991. This date was first observed as "Political Prisoner's Day" in 1974 by prisoners of the Perm and Mordovia camps. Since 2007, the day before Solovetsky stone + Lubyanka Square, opposite the KGB (FSB) building, the names of those executed in 1937–1938 are read: this is the “Return of Names” campaign.
In the 1930s and early 1950s, according to archival data, almost 3,8 млн human, 786 thousands of them were shot.
Since the mid-2010s, everything has changed. Memorial, which compiled the "Victims of Political Terror in the USSR" database and over 600 volumes of Books of Remembrance, was labeled a foreign agent and then liquidated. Monuments to the repressed are disappearing, schools no longer teach about the "Great Terror," and the "Return of Names" movement is repeatedly banned, including under the pretext of COVID-19 restrictions.
The date hasn't been officially cancelled, but the message is clear: celebrating it is not recommended. The idea that the state can be criminal is all too relevant. Today, "NeMoscow" I wrote in detail About how the memory of people tortured by the state is being erased. And most importantly, it was collected on cards.
Repression figures
According to 1988 KGB statistics and FSB archives, 3,778,234 people were arrested by security agencies between the 1930s and early 1950s. Of these, 786,098 were executed.
2016–2021: Memorial and researchers of execution sites
In February 2016, the Ryazan branch of Memorial was designated a foreign agent. In October, the Ministry of Justice added International Memorial to the register of foreign agents, marking the beginning of the organization's official dismantling. In December, Yuri Dmitriev, a researcher of the Sandarmokh execution sites, was arrested.
In 2018, Moscow City Hall first attempted to cancel the "Return of the Names" event at the Solovetsky Stone, ostensibly due to renovations on Lubyanka Square. After a public outcry, the event was allowed to proceed. In 2020, it was canceled due to COVID-19, and for the first time, it was held online. For the same reason, the event was cancelled in 2021 and 2022.
On October 30, 2021, picketers in Moscow, Ivanovo, and Voronezh were detained. In December, the Supreme Court liquidated International Memorial following a lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor General's Office, and Dmitriev's sentence was increased to 15 years. That same year, Memorial Day disappeared from the "Calendar of Educational Events" for schools.
2022–2023: Closures and dismantling
In 2022, Novaya Gazeta suspended publication, and its website was blocked. In 2023, hundreds of "Last Address" signs were destroyed in Russian cities. In May, a Polish monument and a Lithuanian cross at a mass grave site in the village of Pivovarikha were dismantled.
In October 2023, the protest at the stone was not permitted. It was banned in Novosibirsk and Veliky Novgorod, and in Kazan, activists were ambushed by Center E.
2024–2025: New restrictions
In June 2024, the Concept for Remembrance of Victims of Repression removed references to the mass character of the repressions and state responsibility. In September, the Prosecutor General's Office succeeded in overturning 4,000 rehabilitation decisions out of 14,000 reviewed. In February 2024, 177 people were arrested near a stone in St. Petersburg for laying flowers in memory of Navalny. In October, the "Return of Names" website was blocked, and memorial pillars on Mount Kashtak in Tomsk were torn down.
In March 2025, Vasily Khanevich, founder of the NKVD Investigative Prison Museum in Tomsk, was forced to resign. He had spent 36 years compiling a database of nearly 200,000 people. In October, Sergei Malinkovich, leader of the Communists of Russia, proposed abolishing Remembrance Day and removing the Solovetsky Stone from Lubyanka Square.
2026: Memorial is recognized as an extremist organization
In January, the plaque commemorating Anna Politkovskaya was destroyed dozens of times in Moscow. In March, a local history and patriotic complex will be built in Magadan to replace the Gulag Memorial Museum. On April 9, the Supreme Court declared Memorial an extremist organization. In April, the Stone of Sorrow was dismantled in Tomsk. On June 4, Memorial, OVD-Info, and Perm-36 were added to the list of "terrorists and extremists."
According to Memorial and OVD-Info, 5,155 people are persecuted for political reasons, 2,366 of whom are in prison. In 2026 alone, 12 political prisoners died.
Source of figures for the 1930s and early 1950s: KGB statistics from 1988, based on FSB archive data. Source of figures for 2026: Memorial and OVD-Info. How the names of those repressed are read in the regions is described in the article. "Everyone has the right to be remembered: the names of the repressed are being read in the regions.".
