13 July 2015

Source: HRO.org (info)

• St Petersburg & Leningrad region  Moscow city & Moscow region  Victims of repression  Human rights education

On 12 July 2015 a rally was held in St Petersburg to commemorate the anniversary of the death of the writer, dissident and political prisoner of the Soviet era, Valeriya Novodvorskaya. In addition, online donations are being collected for the publication of a three-volume collection of Novodvorskaya’s writings.

Radio Svoboda correspondent, Tatiana Voltskaya, reports that activists from the St Petersburg branch of the Solidarity movement, the Republican Union and the Libertarian Party, in a coalition named Democratic Petersburg, decided to mark the anniversary of the death of Valeriya Illinichna Novodvorskaya.

They did so by going to the Solovetsky Stone in Troitskaya Square with candles, flowers and portraits of Valeriya Novodvorskaya, as well as many homemade posters. These featured photographs of times when Valeriya Illinichna herself stood with posters at various street rallies, starting in the 1980s until 2014 when she took part in protests against the war with Ukraine.

Next to these photographs, people could read quotes from her speeches and articles.

Olga Smirnova, a St Petersburg Solidarity activist, said: “We have selected quotes from her speeches, and now want to spread the photographs of our posters online so that people can see these amazing photographs and read her words.”

Meanwhile, on the well-known website, Planeta.ru, donations are being collected for the publication of a three-volume collection of Valeriya Novodvorskaya’s writings. Donations will be used to collect and digitise materials, for pre-publication preparations, and the printing costs of publication.

Translated by Nathalie Corbett