Press Release, 20.10.2020

Boris Vishnevsky, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and Deputy Chairman of the party, wrote to the General Director of Housing and Utilities Systems of the North-West, whose management company removed 16 nameplates put in memory of victims of Stalinist reprisals from house No 23 in Rubinstein Street. Vishnevsky considers it necessary to return the nameplates to their place.

Boris Vishnevsky also noted that, according to his information, the management company removed the nameplates after complaints from several residents of the house. According to the deputy, the installation of nameplates does not require approval from the city authorities, because they are not memorial plaques, but information signs, and the nameplates do not spoil the facade of the building. Moreover, such a nameplate is put if a person is officially rehabilitated.

“I believe that it is necessary to return the nameplates to their place, the dismantling, which has already caused a serious public outcry, has an extremely negative effect on the image of our city,” Boris Vishnevsky’s letter runs.

“The Last Address project has been implemented for a long time, in our city inclusive, with an extremely noble goal – to preserve the memory of the victims of Stalin’s reprisals,” the deputy stressed.

“I would not like to think that the complainants are supporters of Stalinist reprisals and approve of these crimes,” the head of the Yabloko faction added.

In addition, Boris Vishnevsky asked the management company to answer a number of questions: who exactly sent complaints about the Last Address nameplates and asked to remove them, whether the opinion of the majority of the owners of the premises of the house was found out in any way, and what documents confirm this. If the opinion of the majority of tenants was not found out, the deputy asked the management company to find out this opinion.

Last week it became known that the Last Address nameplates located at 23 Rubinstein Street, near the memorial plaque to the writer Sergei Dovlatov and created to perpetuate the memory of prisoners of Soviet terror, disappeared. The Last Address project was conceived to perpetuate the memory of victims of political reprisals. The project envisages installation of small memorial nameplates on the houses where the victims lived.