Press Release, 8.10.2020

Yabloko Chairman Rybakov sent an appeal to the General Director of the Bukvoed bookstore chain with a request to put a memorial plaque on the wall of the bookstore in memory of Timur Kacharava, St. Petersburg musician, anti-fascist activist, and one of the organisers of the Food Instead of Bombs movement in St. Petersburg, who was stabbed by a far-right nationalist group on the steps of the bookstore.

Musician Timur Kacharava was murdered in the course of an attack on him and his friends by a group of nationalists (who were later convicted between 2007 and 2018) at the entrance to the central store of the Bukvoed chain in Ligovsky Prospekt in St.Petersburg on 13 November, 2005.

In his address, Rybakov recalls that the murder of Kacharava was one of the most tragic events in St. Petersburg in the 2000s. For many years, people have been gathering for commemorative actions on the day of the murder of the musician, they bring flowers, candles and his portraits to the windows of the store. Every year an inscription “Timur, we will remember you” appears on the wall, which is later painted over, and the flowers are removed.

“I think it is important to keep this inscription in memorial status. I suggest that Bukvoed should officially initiate the installation of a memorial plaque at the site of the murder of Timur Kacharava and apply with the relevant documents to the Government of St. Petersburg, confirming the financing of the work,” Nikolai Rybakov wrote in his address.