Ua.news reported Russia, law enforcement and municipal services have completely dismantled the Square of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression, erected in 1992.

The demolition work included its key monument, the "Stone of Sorrow," dedicated to the victims of Bolshevik terror, being torn down, along with a number of national memorials, sparking a wave of outrage among the few remaining activists.
Belarusian independent TV Belsat reported the demolition also saw the removal of a memorial stone to deported Estonians, and similar stones commemorating national minorities who suffered in the Soviet deportations, including Latvians, Lithuanians and Poles.

Russia. Another monument to victims of political repression has disappeared, including Polish people.

In Tomsk, a monument to victims of political repression has been dismantled at Memorial Square.

Workers removed the main monument and other memorial stones erected in honor of… pic.twitter.com/pDY6PyPY4s

— Belsat in English (@Belsat_Eng) April 19, 2026

While ua.news reported the true goal of the campaign is clearly to erase historical memory of the crimes of the Soviet regime, which in many ways echo the actions of the current Kremlin, the official explanations are ever-changing and absurd.

Initially, Tomsk City Hall stated that the square was closed due to the risk of a nearby private garage "collapsing," later replacing this statement with a version citing "measures against landslides" (Tomsk is located on the mostly low-lying Western Siberian plain – ed.).

Local activists emphasized the garage is located 50 meters from the monuments and could in no way pose a threat to the memorial, while Ksenia Fadeeva, who previously headed up dissident Alexei Navalny's campaign office in the city, suggested that the authorities deleted the first post after realizing the asininity of the garage explanation.

In any case, work began on Sunday morning, when the square was reportedly cordoned off with a fence; heavy machinery soon moved in to carry out the destruction work which, eyewitnesses said, involves the complete demolition of the entire site, not mere cosmetic repairs or restoration.

Witnesses said Russian security forces are also on site barring entry to the site, demanding the passport details of anyone approaching the park, and barring photography – including demanding people delete from their devices photos already taken.

Memorial Square in Tomsk had been opened on October 25, 1992, at the initiative of the city authorities and the local memorial society.

Deportations from Estonia to Siberia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union were carried out by the occupying Soviet regime and happened in two main waves. The first was in June 1941, followed by another in March 1949, which combined saw tens of thousands of people displaced, on top of the tens of thousands more who had been displaced by fleeing to the west. Deportations involving smaller numbers of people continued right through to the death of Stalin. Several camps in the Gulag system were situated in the vicinity of Tomsk.

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