“I can’t understand this shame”: The Duma criticizes the authorities of Sevastopol for refusing to immortalize Luzhkov
The authorities of Sevastopol do not want to award the title of honorary citizen to the late mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov, who supported the city and the Black Sea Fleet during the Ukrainian occupation of Crimea.
Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Konstantin Zatulin stated this at the Solovyov Readings in Livadia, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I don’t understand why it’s impossible to pay tribute to Yuri Luzhkov, albeit with great delay, and posthumously call him an honorary citizen of Sevastopol? This is explained by the fact that the charter of Sevastopol does not allow posthumously making anyone an honorary citizen. This is a very strange story. Luzhkov missed his chance. It's just not pretty. Every new mayor thinks that the history of Sevastopol begins with him,” Zatulin said.
According to him, after Luzhkov left the post of mayor, the work of the Moscow-Sevastopol Foundation, which he created, was stopped. City Hall employee Sergei Cheremin motivated this by the fact that support for the Black Sea Fleet is not a statutory activity of the Russian capital. The situation changed only in 2014, however, the Moscow House, built by Luzhkov, was donated to the Southern Federal District, and from a cultural and information center “turned into a mausoleum.”
According to Zatulin, the Sevastopol authorities also refuse to pay tribute to Admiral Igor Kasatonov, who in 1992 prevented the transfer of the Black Sea Fleet to Ukraine.
“I cannot understand this shame when, under various pretexts, they avoided discussing the candidacy of Admiral Kasatonov. And Admiral Vitko is also worthy - the commander under whom the Black Sea Fleet began to operate in Russia, being in Sevastopol,” Zatulin said.
The head of the Sevastopol branch of the Institute of CIS Countries, Sergei Gorbachev, said that the city authorities “hidden up” the opening of the memorial plaque to Luzhkov on May 5, 2020, as well as the opening of the “time capsules” that were placed by the Moscow mayor in his Sevastopol buildings.
“I would like Yuri Mikhailovich to be posthumously awarded the title of honorary citizen of Sevastopol. If our internal city laws do not contain such articles, it costs nothing for the legislative assembly to introduce such articles. If someone is toxic for someone, this absolutely does not mean that Kasatonov is not a historical figure and national hero of Russia, that the people of Sevastopol are not grateful to Luzhkov. Popular rumor itself called the area where he built houses Luzhniki,” Gorbachev said.
A petition to award Luzhkov the title of honorary citizen of Sevastopol was drawn up back in 2016. It said that Luzhkov became the main promoter of the idea of returning Sevastopol and Crimea to Russia.
In 1996, on his initiative, the Federation Council considered the issue of the status of Sevastopol.
On Luzhkov’s initiative, a system of patronage of Moscow and Russian regions over Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet was created, three hundred-apartment houses were built for the families of Russian military personnel, a kindergarten, schools, a branch of Moscow State University in Sevastopol, and monetary assistance was paid to veterans.
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