Workers in Prague dismantled scaffolding erected at the monument to marshal Ivan Konev after the desecration of the pedestal, RIA Novosti reports. The tarp, which covered it, was also removed from the monument. The press service of the district municipality noted that the local authorities would decide the fate of the monument at a meeting scheduled for September 12.
The monument to Soviet marshal Ivan Konev was desecrated on the night of August 21-22. Unknown attackers doused the pedestal with red paint and wrote inscriptions of an offensive character with white paint on it. After that, the local administration decided to cover the monument with tarpaulin, and also offered the Russian embassy to place it on its territory. Otherwise it had to be transferred to one of private collections.
Russkiy Mir
reported that, on September 2, hundreds of members of the public gathered at the monument to Konev to express their indignation at the actions of the administration.
Photo: Ivan Konev in Prague, 1945. Karel Hájek // wikimedia.org
They emphasized that it was Konev who led the Soviet troops, which on May 9, 1945, drove the Nazis out of Prague, and the memory of this must be respected.
Recently, police officers have fined people trying to cut the tarp four times, while residents of Prague continued to carry flowers to the monument to the Soviet soldier.
The head of the Prague-6 district Ondrej Kolar, told reporters that perhaps the municipality would decide to put the issue of the monument’s fate to a referendum.
Russkiy Mir
