Press release, 30.10.2014

On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions Head of YABLOKO faction in St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly Grigory Yavlinsky visited a memorial rally and the Levashovsky memorial cemetery.

According to Yavlinsky, political repressions had taken away the lives of honest, intelligent and strong citizens of Russia in the first place. “53 million people died in Russia from 1917 till 1956. A large number of them, millions, became victims of political repressions. The terrorist regime which easily destroyed people to strengthen its power had been found in Russia”, said the politician.

fter the rally Grigory Yavlinsky laid a wreath to Solovetsky stone and participated in the action called “I wish I could call all of them by name”. He didn’t read the formal accusations after the name of the victims replacing it with the words “was shot for being a patriot of Russia”. “In those conditions an enemy of the Soviet authorities was the patriot of Russia, the person who wanted to protect Russia”, he explained.

Later Yavlinsky visited the Levashovsky cemetery where more than 46 thousand victims of Joseph Stalin’s terror were buried in 1937-1953. Yavlinsky also made an entry in the visitors register where he wrote “All we can do is not let this take place again”.

A well-known films director Alexandr Sokurov, writer Daniil Granin, St.Petersburg ombudsman for human rights Alexandr Shishlov, deputies of St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly Boris Vishnevsky, Alexandr Kobrinsky and Igor Visotsky also participated in the action.