Blog (English) – Denis Karagodin

To Save the NKVD Garage, Tomsk Removed a Memorial

The Stone of Sorrow, a memorial to victims of Soviet political repression, was dismantled at night under the official explanation that a former NKVD garage had to be protected — part of the infrastructure associated with the “black vans” of the Great Terror.

The official version invites us to discuss the garage. But the way the dismantling was carried out forces a different discussion: the disappearance of public memory. The garage is the explanation. Memory is the object of action.

Final Note: On the Removal of the Stone of Sorrow

I woke up to a city in which, overnight, the Stone of Sorrow — a memorial to the victims of political repression — had been dismantled. From that moment on, the task was not only to understand what had happened, but to document it as it unfolded. That is what I could do. And that is what I have done.

Memory Wars: Mirroring Dynamics Between Russia and Europe

Conflicts over memory between states — and within them

Memory, Mirrored Asymmetry, and the Politics of Removal

The demolition of the Stone of Sorrow memorial in Tomsk marks another moment in the unfolding “memory wars” between Russia and Europe — a conflict in which struggles over monuments reflect deeper contestation over historical narratives, state identity, and the foundations upon which they are built.

After Tomsk, the Solovetsky Stone in Moscow is likely next

In Russian

After the demolition of the memorial stone to the victims of political repression in Tomsk, the next logical step is an almost inevitable attempt to remove the Solovetsky Stone from Lubyanka Square in Moscow. I see no reason why this wouldn’t happen. We should be prepared for it. In that sense, Tomsk is now a testing ground. I hope I’m wrong — but I probably won’t be.

The Black Vans Return

When infrastructure erases memory: in Tomsk, what bore direct witness to Soviet political repression is being removed using the very infrastructure that once sustained it.

In the center of Tomsk, a Siberian city with a long and layered history, a memorial to the victims of Soviet political repression has quietly disappeared. Officially, it was removed due to safety concerns. Its absence, however, raises a different question: what happens when the infrastructure once used to carry out repression becomes the justification for removing memory itself?

For decades, the site stood as a visible point of public memory. Today, it stands empty.