First of all, the statue of Lenin in Lenin’s Square is definitely one of the legacies of the Soviet Union. It was built by architects Ozhegov and Milovidov, and the opening ceremony for the statue was on 25 October 1967. This statue always appears on the first page of any Yakutsk city books from the Soviet Union era and is always presented with people cheering and swinging red flags.
A picture from the book “Река Лена” (1979)
A picture from the book, “Yakutia Today” (1982)
Though there is no longer a picture of the statue of Lenin with such people nowadays, the statue is still located in the center of the city, and it is still where all parades and festivals take place and people gather.
Another Soviet symbol is the statue of Karl Marx, a revolutionary socialist, the founder of communism who greatly influenced revolutionaries and the establishment of the Soviet Union. The opening ceremony of the statue took place on June 21, 1982 on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Yakut ASSR and is located in the Palace of Friendship of Peoples of Yakutia (Дворец дружбы народов Якутии им. А.Е. Кулаковского).
Though the statue of Lenin and the statue of Karl Marx do not provoke controversy and blended into Yakutsk, there are some symbols of the Soviet Union that generate contention in Yakutsk. One of them is a bust of Dzerzhinsky that was erected in 1987 on 8 Dzerzhinsky St. Felix Dzerzhinsky is famously known as the director of the Cheka, the notorious Soviet secret police force used for mass executions during the Red Terror and the Russian Civil War.
More importantly, Dzerzhinsky St., one of the largest streets in Yakutsk, is widely controversial. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Sakha people protested to rename the street after a Sakha intellectual; however, this was unsuccessful and the name of the Sakha intellectual was given to a small street near North-Eastern Federal University (prev. Yakutsk State University).
Another controversial Soviet symbol, a statue of Stalin, was unveiled in Yakutsk in 2013, a day before Victory Day. Russian war veterans, supported by the local branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, collected money and material for the bust, and placed this statue near the local Almazi Anabara private Diamond Mining Company office in Yakutsk. Their argument was that Stalin’s role in the early industrial and scientific developments of the USSR and in the Russian victory in World War II should be celebrated. However, as in other Russian cities, this provoked major disputes in Yakutsk, and many people protested to demolish the statue.
Works Cited
The first picture is from the book,
Анатолий Фаламов, Юрий Лушин, Александр Житомиркий, Река Лена (Москва: Советская Россия, 1979)
The second picture is from the book,
Ю. П. Семенов, В. П. Яковлев, Якутия Сегодня (Москва: Советская Россия, 1982)
Information and picture of Karl Marx is from
Information and picture of the statue of Dzerzhinsky is from
http://xn--80aaa0cnog0a4d2a.xn--p1ai/pamyatniki/byusty/byust-osnovatelya-vchk-f-e-dzerzhinskogo/
Information and picture of the statue of Stalin is from https://www.rt.com/politics/north-russian-republic-sakha-yakutiya-988/
Interview with Dr. Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer and Vera Solovyeva, December 8th 2016, Washington, D.C.
