Day of Remembrance

Solovetsky Stone in front of Lubyanka in Moscow

On October 30, the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions, in Moscow  many more people participated in the Memorial Society ceremony “Returning Names” than in previous years. People waited in a line for four hours for their turn to read the names of the victims executed during the Great Terror (1936-38). Traditionally, the ceremony has taken place in the center of Moscow, at the Solovetsky Stone across from the FSB headquarters building. The stone was brought from the former Solovetsky Labor Camp and installed on Moscow Lubyanka Square in front of the FSB building, the successor of the CheKa/GPU/OGPU/NKVD/NKGB/MGB/KGB (on the Solovetsky Labor Camp, see Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Gulag Archipelago. Vol. II. Pp. 25-70. In 2002, another stone was brought from the Solovetsky Labor Camp to St. Petersburg and installed on Troitsky Square in the central part of the city. A similar “Returning Names” ceremony takes place in front of this stone annually. Also on October 30th, ceremonies in the memory of the victims of Soviet repression were carried out in all cities in Russia where the “Memorial” has branches.