Penza, 25 July 2015. PenzaNews. Over 100 Internet users signed an online petition to the Penza city administration head Yuri Krivov against the move of the Joseph Stalin monument on Kirova street, the planned location of the new headquarters of the regional CPRF committee. The petition was created by Andrei Sorokin, an aspiring journalist who frequently cooperated with various local periodicals.

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“We, the signatories, ask to protect the memory of the victims to the Stalin regime in the Penza region and block the initiative of the local CPRF supporters to move the Joseph Stalin monument to the Penza city center. The archive of the regional FSB department keeps files on over 26,000 Penza citizens who were deemed to be victims of political oppression. The Stalin monument in Penza not only violates their memory, but practically acts as a justification and veneration of the totalitarian regime,” reads the petition.

It also stresses that there is no reason to call the “people’s leader” the real person behind the victory in the Great Patriotic War, as “it solely and fully belongs to the USSR people.”

“The fundamental human rights, just like human lives themselves, practically lost their importance during the reign of Joseph Stalin. It was the time when the most talented people of Russia were pursued and killed akin to the many others. […] The Stalin monument is a monument to the bloody, totalitarian and inhumane regime. Moving it to the city center is an unjustified and unjust decision,” reads the address to the Penza city administration head.