Arkhangelsk mayor wants to erect a Stalin monument in a memorial park dedicated to the victims of Soviet repression

Igor Godzish, the mayor of Arkhangelsk, has endorsed the idea of installing a monument to Josef Stalin in a local memorial park dedicated to the victims of Soviet political repression.

“The design of the monument needs to be discussed with the public, with the involvement of artists, sculptors, and architects,” Godzish told journalists during an official visit to Lomonosov Park, where there's now a memorial to Soviet prison camp victims. The mayor stressed that any monument to Stalin would need to be morally ambiguous and open to interpretation.

The existing memorial now in Lomonosov Park—a granite boulder called the Solovetsky Stone (pictured below)—was established in 1992 by a local NGO using donations from the public. A bronze plate on the front of the stone reads, “To the victims of the political repressions.”