Press Release, 17.05.2025

Photo: Historian and human rights defender Yan Rachinsky signs the petition in the Moscow Yabloko office / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Immediately after it was reported on the plans of the Moscow Department of Transport to install a bas-relief with Joseph Stalin with the inscription “Gratitude of the people to the leader-commander” at the Taganskaya metro station in Moscow, the Yabloko party began collecting signatures in its Moscow office under an appeal to the Mayor’s Office demanding that these plans be abandoned.

After the unveiling of the bas-relief on 15 May, Yabloko received hundreds of requests from residents of different regions of Russia expressing their desire to support the demand for the dismantling of the bas-relief. Now anyone can sign the petition on the Yabloko party website. Next week, signature collection will begin in the regional branches of the party across Russia.

The installation of a memorial image of Stalin in the public space of the capital of Russia is not just a mistake, but a cynical trampling of historical truth. The Stalinist regime is responsible for millions of victims, years of terror, fear and lawlessness. We must not allow the crimes of the past to be hushed up or justified under the guise of “historical memory”.

We believe it is necessary to ensure a respectful attitude to the memory of the victims of political repression and demand that the Department of Transport and the Moscow Mayor’s Office immediately dismantle the bas-relief of Stalin.

According to historian and human rights defender Yan Rachinsky, over 750 builders and employees of the Moscow metro fell victim to state terror, more than 140 of them were shot. Among those shot was the first head of the Moscow metro, Adolf Petrikovsky, his name was included in the “execution list” endorsed by Stalin on 20 August, 1938. Yan Rachinsky also signed the demand to dismantle the bas-relief.