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Vandals Blow Hole Through Lenin Statue

By Irina Titova

The St. Petersburg Times

Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times A policeman stands next to the statue of Vladimir Lenin by the Finland Station that was bombed by vandals on Wednesday morning.

A nationally-significant statue of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in front of St. Petersburg’s Finland railway station was bombed by vandals early on Wednesday morning.

 The explosion damaged the monument from behind leaving a large and unsightly hole.  The force of the explosive device was equivalent to about 300 grams of TNT, according to the St. Petersburg police press office.

 “No matter how anyone may feel about certain parts of our history, on a human level [this act of vandalism] is a crime against a remarkable piece of monumental art, a classic of the Soviet period,” said Vera Dementyeva, the head of the St. Petersburg Monument Protection Committee (KGIOP), reported Interfax.

The statue is set to undergo restoration in situ.

Only the most unstable parts of the damaged monument will be restored in workshops, according to the KGIOP.

During restoration the monument will be covered in a special sarcophagus, it said.

On Wednesday it emerged that an organization by the name of the ‘Zalessky Flying Battle Group’ had taken responsibility for the act, Interfax said.

However, on Thursday the Russian Police Ministry said had no information that the organization had anything to do with the explosion.

Pavel Klimovsky, deputy head of the ministry’s press-service, said that information on the internet linking the group to the explosion could simply be “self-promotion”.

The organization is illegal and not officially registered anywhere.  In December last year they took responsibility for the destruction of a statue of Lenin in the city of Ryazan, Interfax said.

Meanwhile, the explosion has provoked indignation in Communist circles.

Vladimir Fyodorov, head of St. Petersburg Communist party office, drew several conclusions from the incident.

“First of all, it is not normal that any explosion can take place so easily in the center of a large city, especially near its busiest railway station,” Fyodorov said.

“Secondly, such a situation does the country’s current administration no favors as it leads to the feeling that if a monument is destroyed today because of the figure’s politics, in the future, someone may target living people with such views,” he said.

Fyodorov said the Communist party had previously requested security for the monument after it suffered a smaller act of vandalism when someone placed a sable into Lenin’s hand.  However, no such measures had been implemented, he said.

Vadim Tyulpanov, speaker of St. Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly, said in his comment on the case that the city’s deputies have in the past suggested toughening the penalties for vandalism.

“I see the incident as the act of vandalism toward one of the city’s monuments.  We’ve long been pressing for tougher punishments for such crimes,” Tyulpanov said.

Meanwhile, representatives of the city’s human rights organization, Memorial, said monuments to founders of the Soviet system had no place in Russian cities.

Irina Flige, head of Memorial’s scientific and research center, argued that the only effective method to combat acts of vandalism against statues of Lenin is to remove them altogether.

“We condemn any act of vandalism against any monument, since such acts pose a great danger to people.  It’s certainly a crime,” Flige said, Interfax reported.

“However, we think that there should be no monuments to the founders of the Soviet system in the streets and squares of Russian cities.  Such acts of vandalism only slow down decisions on the removal of such sculptures,” she said.

The city prosecutor has opened an investigation under article 167 of the Russian Criminal Code -intentional damage to property endangering life.

Sergei Evseyev’s bronze sculpture of Lenin was unveiled on November 7, 1926, and is considered a monument of national significance. The explosion comes in the wake of the defacement of a portrait of the former leader in Pyatigorsk, in the North Caucuses, on March 23-24.

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