Monuments to Russians and Soviets in Kyiv daubed with demands they be pulled down
Flash mob is becoming popular (Photo:Oleg Slabospytskyi/Facebook)
Monuments to communists and Russians still standing in Kyiv got “extra decorations” over the past few days, after an online campaign called "Dismantle Me Completely" encouraged people to write on them demands for their demolition.
Oleh Slabospytskyi, the Coordinator of the Public Sector of Euromaidan civil action group, announced the event on his Facebook page on Sept. 24.
He said the campaign was needed to alert the city authorities to the need to dismantle the monuments, some of which he said break Ukraine’s own decommunization laws.
“The Bolshevik criminal Mykola Shchorsa was the first to be (decorated),” Slabospitsky wrote.
“His figure clearly falls under the Law on Decommunization, and since 2016 the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance has been calling for the monument to be removed from the heart of the capital.”
The next "participant" of the flash mob was Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
“Pushkin is a symbol of Russian imperialism, the personification of the ‘great mighty Russian language,’ a marker of the Russian world and identity,” the activist said.
“In his works, Pushkin denied even the possibility of Ukrainian statehood, and openly propagated Ukrainophobia, hatred of Ukrainians and Poles.”
In comments to Slabospitsky's post, users noted that the monument to Pushkin had already been cleaned. The activist urged readers to continue leaving inscriptions on monuments.
"Only information publicity and joint action will allow the capital to get rid of the last markers of Russification and Bolshevism,” he wrote.
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