Dozens of pro-government activists came to the Sandarmokh memorial cemetery in Karelia, where mass executions took place during the time of Joseph Stalin, on the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Great Terror. As From Karelia with freedom and Memorial write, they prevent representatives of foreign embassies from remembering the repressed.
Every year on August 5, diplomats working in Russia from Poland, Germany, Finland, France, Israel and other countries, as well as human rights activists and concerned people, come to the Sandarmokh tract near Medvezhyegorsk.
In the morning, Cossacks, activists of the Young Guard, and representatives of other pro-government movements arrived by bus to the site of the executions and burials. Many were dressed in camouflage uniforms, and some had masks covering their faces. According to From Karelia with freedom, they brought with them “powerful speakers from which Victory songs flowed onto the execution pits, drowning out the reading of the names of those killed by the NKVD.”
Memorial writes that pro-government activists chanted at the Jewish monument: “Jews sponsored Hitler.” Posters about Emilia Slabunova, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia, were hung on the trees: “Emilia Edgardovna! Why are you there, where there is fascism, LGBT, pedophilia?”
From Karelia with freedom also writes that in the morning, for some unknown reason, security forces tried to get into the apartment of Petrozavodsk activist Andrei Litvin. He was planning to go to a funeral event in Sandarmokh. There has been no contact with Litvin since then, notes 7×7.
In addition, local blogger Alexey Trunov, who was also driving to the tract, was detained in Petrozavodsk in the morning. When he was released half a day later, he said that FSB officers came to him and searched his house. Formally, this was formalized as «inspection of premises».
According to the blogger, the reason was a denunciation by an unknown person that «he communicates with people of non-traditional orientation.» Trunov was taken to the FSB building in Petrozavodsk, where they threatened to «shove a bottle up his [ass].»
Updated at 20:20. Details about the detention of Alexander Trunov have been added.