A plaque commemorating Akhmatova has disappeared from the wall of the “Kresty” pre-trial detention center in St. Petersburg

A memorial plaque commemorating the poetess Anna Akhmatova has disappeared from the former “Kresty” pretrial detention center on Arsenalnaya embankment in St. Petersburg. “Fontanka” newspaper writes about this. The reasons for the dismantling are not reported.

A plaque with Akhmatova’s portrait and lines from her poem “Requiem” was located at the main entrance to the detention center.

At the end of May, the FSIN administration in St. Petersburg transferred the “Kresty” complex to the “DOM.RF” joint-stock company. According to the plans, the pre-trial detention center buildings will be sold at auction.

In the 1930s, Akhmatova’s son, Lev Gumilyov, was in “Kresty”. Together with him, the poet’s third husband, the art historian Nikolay Punin, was sent to pre-trial detention center. According to Akhmatova, she spent 300 hours in the isolation ward in the hope of giving a broadcast, but it was never accepted.

Recently, there have been messages from different regions of Russia about the dismantling of memorial signs to victims of political repression. In particular, plaques of the “Last Address” memorial project began to disappear in Moscow. In Yakutsk, plaques with the names of the victims of deportations of the 18th-19th centuries and mass repressions of the 20th century were dismantled from the monument to the memory of the Poles.