Moldovans demand the demolition of the “monument to the victims of the Soviet occupation”
A petition demanding the demolition of the “monument to the victims of the Soviet occupation” erected on the site of the Lenin monument in the center of Chisinau was published in the Moldovan group “Random Correspondent” on Facebook, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
The “monument” in Chisinau received the unofficial name “Ghimpu stone” after the Russophobe and anti-Soviet Mihai Ghimpu, who served as the acting Moldovan president in 2009-2010. During this time, he managed to establish a new mourning date on June 28 - the Day of Soviet Occupation. On this day the stone was installed.
As the authors of the petition point out, already on July 12, 2010, the Constitutional Court of Moldova overturned Ghimpu’s decree on the new holiday, but the “monument” remained standing.
“Since the decision of the Constitutional Court, that is, for 10 years now, the “Ghimpu stone” has been located in the central square of Chisinau illegally,” the petition says.
It is worth noting that in 2018, journalist Elena Levitskaya-Pakhomova found out that the monolith for the “Ghimpu stone” was stolen from the memorial complex next to the Victory Arch. The complex consisted of 8 steles, which depicted the most significant milestones in the history of the Moldavian SSR.
“The steles turned from horizontal to vertical, and the inscriptions were removed from them. But the holes from the fastening of the plates with the inscriptions remained. They are not even capable of destroying to the ground. I would like to take everything away and appropriate it for myself,” Pakhomova wrote then.
Another journalist, Nikolai Kostyrkin, believes that the “Ghimpu stone” should be demolished on the same day it was installed – June 28 – and mark the 80th anniversary of Bessarabia’s entry into the Soviet Union.
“We, normal people of this country, would really like the local authorities to try and remove this monument to stupidity and an outdated liberal corps de ballet back into the storerooms of the city executive committee. Sorry, mayor's office. Where did this stone come from in 2010 in order to violate our common memory,” Kostyrkin wrote in the publication “Notebook Moldova.”
Bessarabia was part of Romania for 22 years from March 27 (April 9), 1918, when, taking advantage of the weakening of Russia in the civil war, Romanian troops entered the region and took possession of it, breaking the resistance. On June 28, 1940, after ultimatum notes from the Soviet government to Romania, which had become Hitler's ally, Bessarabia was transferred to the Soviet Union.
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