Press Release, 13.05.2025

Photo: A bas-relief “Gratitude of the People to the Leader-Commander” depicting Joseph Stalin at the Taganskaya underground station in Moscow, dismantled in 1965/ Photo by Glavarchiv, Moscow

On 13 May, the Moscow branch of Yabloko sent an appeal to Maxim Liksutov, head of the Department of Transport and Development of Road and Transport Infrastructure of Moscow. Yabloko demands from the Moscow authorities to abandon the initiative to restore the wall carving “Gratitude of the People to the Leader-Commander” depicting Joseph Stalin at the Taganskaya underground station in Moscow. Yabloko has launched a collection of signatures against the restoration of the wall carving glorifying the tyrant.

This wall carving was dismantled back in 1965 as part of the de-Stalinisation policy initiated by the Soviet authorities. Even in the totalitarian system of the 20th century, it was considered unacceptable to perpetuate the image of a person under whom mass terror became a state policy.

“Today, in 2025, the Moscow authorities decided to take a step back, ignoring not only historical memory, but also the moral principles of respect for the victims of repression. We consider it unacceptable to return to the public space symbols associated with the darkest period of Russian history.

Throughout its history, the Yabloko Party has consistently condemned Stalinism as a criminal ideology that led to mass repressions, executions, deportations, prison terms, torture and hardships that forever changed the fates of millions of people. We insist on preserving the memory of the victims of these repressions and the inadmissibility of glorifying the tyrant,” the appeal runs.

The appeal runs that, according to the minimal documentary confirmed estimates, at least 600,000 people were shot during the years of Stalin’s terror, and dozens of millions ended up in labour camps for political and minor criminal offenses:

The authors of the appeal also state that the initiative to restore the bas-relief cannot be regarded as an act of preserving architectural heritage, since during Stalin’s rule, identical monuments and frescoes in honour of “the leader of the nations” were erected throughout the country, and carried an exclusively ideological component. The present restoration of the wall carving represents a political action dividing society.

Earlier, the Bureau of the Moscow Yabloko issued a statement deploring the initiative of the Department of Transport to return the bas-relief depicting Stalin to the Moscow metro.

Yabloko has launched the collection of signatures against the restoration of the bas-relief to the tyrant, and asks all citizens sharing this view to come to the Moscow office of Yabloko and leave their signature under the petition.