Qualla: Memorial to the Victims of Political Repression (Saint Petersburg)

Memorial to the Victims of Political Repression (Saint Petersburg): Introduction

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space), CC BY-SA 4.0. Stand on the Voskresenskaya Embankment and look at the sphinxes from the river side. You see skulls. Walk around to the side facing the apartment buildings and you see the profiles of young women. The sculptures by Mikhail Shemyakin, unveiled here on April 28, 1995, have two faces because the Soviet century had two faces: the official face it showed itself, and the face of the dead it would not name. Across the Neva looms Kresty Prison, the brick fortress where Anna Akhmatova spent seventeen months waiting in line to deliver parcels to her son Lev. She wrote Requiem for that line. The sphinxes face Kresty. They have not looked away.

Image: Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Memorial to the Victims of Political Repression (Saint Petersburg): The Women in the Line

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space), CC BY-SA 4.0. Akhmatova stood outside Kresty in the winter of 1938. Behind her in the line, a woman with bluish lips whispered, Can you describe this? Akhmatova answered, I can. She wrote Requiem in fragments she dared not put on paper, memorizing each line and burning the drafts, the cycle fi...

Image: Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Memorial to the Victims of Political Repression (Saint Petersburg): Names Shemyakin Refused to Forget

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space), CC BY-SA 4.0. The sculptures were created by Shemyakin in 1992, originally dedicated to the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt, with stars of David on their pedestals. When the work became the basis of the political-repression memorial, the stars were covered by anthology plaques bearing texts b...

Image: Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Memorial to the Victims of Political Repression (Saint Petersburg): The Stones and the Cross

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gustave Moreau, Public domain. Between the sphinxes, fifteen meters apart, stands a structure of granite blocks arranged as an early Christian cross with a small lattice window at its center. Look through the window and your gaze lands on Kresty Prison across the river. A wreath of barbed wire crowns the cross...

Image: Gustave Moreau | Public domain

Memorial to the Victims of Political Repression (Saint Petersburg): Vandalism and Vigil

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gesanonstein, CC0. The monument has been attacked repeatedly. Plaques were stolen early on. A wreath disappeared. A bronze rose was pried off. On Hitler's birthday in April 2001 vandals knocked the central structure off the parapet. The granite book has been stolen at least twice. Each time the cit...

Image: Gesanonstein | CC0