As if the Russian political barometer hasn’t fallen low enough, news comes that it has yet to reach the bottom of the glass. Official symbolism is a reliable indicator of trends, and an announcement by Georgi Filimonov this week marks a new low. Filimonov, recently appointed as governor of Vologda province, plans to erect a life-sized statue of dictator Joseph Stalin in the provincial capital. Not to denounce him but to ‘commemorate’ him.
Probably, Putin always had an admiration for Stalin
Decades have passed since Nikita Khrushchëv spread the word in the Soviet Union that Stalin was a despot and a mass killer. Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin expanded the story to cover the millions who died at his hands. Even Vladimir Putin used to acknowledge that those hands were the most bloodstained in Russia’s history since Ivan the Terrible.
The proposed celebration in Vologda is not just a local initiative. Filimonov is Putin’s appointee.
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