Kyiv renames iconic Soviet-era monument
Ukraine began demolishing a monument symbolising historic ties between ex-Soviet Ukraine and Russia, two months after Russia invasion
Photo taken on 26 April, 2022 Workers dismantle the Soviet monument to Ukraine-Russia friendship in Kyiv on 26 April, 2022, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine. – Authorities in Kyiv on 26 April, 2022 began demolishing a monument symbolising historic ties between ex-Soviet Ukraine and Russia, AFP correspondents reported, more than two months after Moscow’s troops invaded Ukraine. Photo: Genya SAVILOV / AFP
Kyiv Saturday renamed an iconic Soviet-era arch symbolising ties with Moscow to “Arch of the Freedom of the Ukrainian People”, the mayor said.
The symbolic move comes after the city demolished a statue of two workers — one Russian and the other Ukrainian — under the arch last month.
“The city council today decided to ‘de-communise’ the name of the Arch of the Friendship of the Peoples. It will now be the Arch of the Freedom of the Ukrainian People,”
the capital’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.
40 MONUMENTS
“approved a list of more than 40 monuments and memorial plaques that will have to be removed from streets and buildings of the capital and transferred to a museum of totalitarianism.”
He said officials had also
He said renaming them all would take time and involve “specialists”, mainly historians, “so as not to take a hasty decision”.
The arch is an imposing 35-metre-high monument that towers over central Kyiv. It was erected in 1982.
Many Kyiv residents have called for plaques across the city linked to Russia and its ally Belarus to be replaced.
The Kyiv metro has held online surveys on how to rename stations.
Users have voted for the “Minsk” station to become “Warsaw” station, and for the “Leo Tolstoy Square” stop to instead celebrate Vassyl Stus, a Ukrainian dissident who died in the Soviet gulag.
