Human rights defenders Marina Sedova and Ernest Mezak barely managed to get nine volumes of martyrology “Pokayaniye” ("Repentance") with stories of repression of the Komi Republic, and they were immediately surrounded by the Communists from the press secretary of the party to State Duma deputy Nikolai Razvorotnev.
Gregory Bobyrev, the editor of the newspaper "Leninskoye znamya", was trying to convey, especially journalists, the truth about Stalin. According to him, this historical figure didn’t allow to realize the Nazi plan Ost and the Dulles doctrine.
The first secretary of the regional committee of the Lipetsk LKMS (Lenin Komsomol) Sergey Gridnev appeared from somewhere, expanding "concocted in haste" poster against foreign NGOs. Sergey Tokarev, the second secretary of the same Komsomol, standing next to a colleague, was explaining the essence: we mustn’t allow the West to impose its point of view on the Russian and Soviet history. Deputy Nikolai Razvorotnev took up his thought: he was sure that all the money of modern NGOs, including "Memorial", was controlled by the US State Department.
“Stalin is the doer! Solzhenitsyn is not my hero!” Nikolai Razvorotnev completed a brief excursus to the history.
Later Marina Sedova was allowed to expand her poster. Photo of her grandfather and his biography: born, arrested, convicted under article 58 ― for "counter-revolutionary activities".
Duma deputy Nikolai Razvorotnev, participated in cross-talk with human rights defenders, neither confirmed nor denied Stalin's repression as a historical fact.
Initially it was planned to hold a mass rally, however, due to the failure to agree with the Lipetsk city hall, activists decided to confine themselves to the one-person pickets. For fifteen minutes, the protesters of the KHRC "Memorial" and communists stood side by side. Then there was only Marina Sedova with placard.
“Lipetsk has become the first regional center with a monument to Stalin in recent history,” chairman of the KHRC "Memorial" Igor Sazhin explained the choice of venue for the action. “If you don’t pay attention to it, the installation of such busts can begin across the country. People have an illusion: will have a master, everything will be fine. They want an order in the country, which symbol is Stalin. People in Nazi Germany also wanted an order.”
The conflict between the Communists and members of the Komi human rights organization "Memorial" was closely watched by five policemen. They were without lapel badge. First, because they "passed by", then they began to refer to the law of the police, according to which they shouldn’t have badges with them. Later it turned out that just yesterday someone broke the glass in the building of the regional party committee.
However, according to police, none of them administered the law during the rally.
After the picket human rights defenders will send the martyrology to the Lipetsk city hall to remind officials about the controversial role of Stalin in the history of our country.
