Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 3 – Despite clearly
expressed opposition by the people of Ryazan, the powers that be in that
central Russian city have had no difficulty in approving and finding money for
monuments to those who have oppressed the people; and despite public support
for a memorial to the victims of such oppressors, the city claims it has no
money available.
There are many situations which
demonstrate that the authorities at all levels of government are responsive to
those above them but not to the people they supposedly represent, but few are clearer
than the situation involving decisions about monuments in Ryazan, MBK’sYekaterina
Vulikh says (mbk-news.appspot.com/region/stydno-i-bolno-za-ryazan/).
For
20 years, Ryazan residents have been pushing to establish a monument to the
victims of political repression, but they have always been told that there is
no money in the city’s budget to do so. But last year, the city financed a
statue to Cheka founder Feliks Dzherinsky and began construction of a monument
to the Russian Guard.
Last
month, facing an angry population, the mayor staged an online poll about the
latter and claimed a majority of those taking part had approved the idea (admrzn.ru/informatsionnye-razdely/novosti/2019/:33908). But an activist did a recount and found
that 185 people opposed the monument and only 140 backed it (vk.com/wall-168045239_12089).
One
of the organizers of the “no” vote was Irina Kusova, a historian at the Ryazan
Kremlin museum. She said that if the
monument to the Russian Guard should appear, this would be a source of shame
for the city, especially coming on the heels of the statue of the founder of
the Soviet secret police.
And so in this small
way, Vulikh shows, the efforts of Putin era officials to use the trappings of
democracy to legitimize what they do have again backfired, forcing them to
scramble and dissemble in order to claim support from below when in fact they
only have orders from above.
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