Moscow’s annual commemoration of Great Terror victims moves online during coronavirus pandemic

Moscow’s “Returning the Names” commemoration, which the human rights group Memorial hosts annually at the Solovetsky Stone in Lubyanka Square, is taking place online this year. Memorial’s spokeswoman Natalya Petrova told the Russian business newspaper Kommersant that this decision was made “in connection with the epidemiological situation.”

The website october29.ru will be hosting a live feed of the commemorative event from 10:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. local time. 

Participants in the commemoration read out the following information about victims of the Soviet Great Terror: their names, age at the time of arrest, the date of their arrest, place of residence, profession, and date of execution. This year’s commemoration began with a read out from Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova.