About 300 Soviet monuments to be demolished in Estonia
Estonia plans to dismantle most of the Soviet monuments, and their list has been prepared by a special working group assembled by order of the government, Interfax reports
Asko Kivinuk – who heads the group – explained to ERR, “Soviet-era monuments from the list prepared by the working group will be removed as soon as possible.” According to him, 133 out of 322 monuments and tombstones with Soviet symbols on the list constitute war graves, and ‘we can proceed with these immediately’.
The remains of Soviet soldiers will be reburied from the graves. However, he did not specify how many of them would have to be reburied and where. “This depends on the specific site. With some war graves, just a few fallen have been buried, while in others there are hundreds. Where will they be reburied? The present practice is that they will be buried in the nearest actual cemetery, in co-operation with local government,” the Estonian official added.
Answering the question of how many monuments will be completely destroyed and which will be sent to museums, Mr. Kivinik said, “I can't give an exact figure, but I would imagine most of them will be destroyed.”
