Press Release, 29.10.2014

YABLOKO leaders and activists participated in the annual memorial action commemorating the victims of political reprisals during Stalin’s period. The action was organised by the Memorial human rights group on the threshold of October 30, the Day of Political Prisoners, established in 1974 by Soviet political prisoners who conducted hunger strikes and lit candles in memory of the victims on that day. The action took place near the FSB (former KGB) building at Lubyanka squareby by the Solovetsky stone, the stone brought from the Solovetsky Islands, the location of the Solovki prison camp which was part of the Soviet Gulag system.

The participants of the action received lists with the names of the Muscovites – victims of Stalin’s terror of 1937 – 1938, their age, posts and dates of execution – read the names out loud and put candles to the Solovetsky Stone. The action began at 10.00 and finished at 10.00 pm.

“There is hope that our country has some future until the memory of the terrible crimes of the state is alive. All those myths that Stalin’s supporters are spreading nowadays that Joseph Stalin’s terror was justified, that it was against some enemies, conspirators is being revealed exactly here by the example of these tragic fates. Stalin and his executioners killed ordinary people”, said YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin.

30,000 people were shot in Moscow in 1937-1938.

Galina Mikhakeva