Decision by the Federal Bureau of Yabloko, adopted on 10.04.2025, published on 24.04.2025

Photo: Restoration of the Last Address project plaques removed after an anonymous complaint / Photo by Alexander Chizhenok, Kommersant

In early April, unidentified vandals removed the Last Address plaque installed on the house where famous theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold was arrested in St. Petersburg in 1939 [during Joseph Stalin’s repression].

This is far from the first such incident – there have been dozens such cases in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other cities. In some cases, unidentified “activists” destroy the plaques; in others, municipal services dismantle them citing “lack of permissions” for installation. At the same time, demands to create an official mechanism for installing Last Address plaques encounter blatant reluctance from authorities.

Yabloko considers the Last Address project an important component in commemorating victims of political repression in our country.

We regard counteraction to this project as the same desire to silence this memory, as the damage or dismantling of memorials to victims of political repression observed in dozens of regions, and the erection of monuments to Joseph Stalin, the main organiser and ideologist behind these repressions.

Attempts to erase the memory of past political repressions have the obvious goal of forcing citizens not to question the correctness of present political repressions, forget that state actions can be criminal, and that those persecuted by the state may be innocent.

Yabloko demands the creation of a clear and simple procedure for installing Last Address plaques, and declaring them (including those already installed) objects of state protection.

Nikolai Rybakov,

Yabloko Chairman