The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia Maria Zakharova supported the idea of creating a digital map of all monuments to Soviet soldiers in Poland. She said this today at a briefing in Svetlogorsk, Kaliningrad region.

On the journalist's question about the attitude to the idea of creating a digital map of all the monuments to the soldiers of the Red Army to confront the state vandalism in Poland, Maria Zakharova replied:

“I fully support your idea. It seems to me that it is already being worked out, at least we do everything for it. Firstly, it is the creation of a database, a virtual map of monuments that are located in Europe, where fierce battles for the liberation of countries and peoples were going on. Secondly, today we spoke about this with the participants of BaltArtek, and similar ideas were expressed by the young people.

I think that we must do this necessarily. Moreover, not only at the state level, but also necessarily in interaction with civil society. It should be not something that comes "from above", as a "binding", it should be a joint work. We are ready to render all necessary assistance for this.

I want to say that, in particular, the Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated the signing of a special agreement between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Russian Military Historical Society. We are very active in the work related to the prevention of vandalism and the rewriting of history, the support of sound forces that advocate the preservation of monuments. Now we have an appropriate agreement with the Russian Military Historical society, which deals with this problem.”

To unite the efforts of activists in the preservation of memorials, monuments, places of mass graves of soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War and other armed conflicts, the Russian Military History Society created the web portal of Местопамяти.рф (Memory Place). This is an information space for objects of military historical heritage, which citizens themselves form and process directly. To date, the portal contains information about more than 12,000 memorial sites in Russia and beyond. In 2018, for the project, a special application was released, which allows augmenting the database of monuments from mobile devices. It is available for download in the AppStore and GooglePlay.

“A number of memorials to Soviet soldiers in Poland have already been identified on the interactive map "Memory Place". This is a memorial in the cemetery of Soviet officers in Wrocław; a monument on the brotherly burial ground of Soviet soldiers and prisoners of war in Pieniezno; Monument to the Soldiers-Liberators in the cemetery-mausoleum of Soviet soldiers in Warsaw; Memorial to the memory of soldiers who died during the liberation of Poland in the World War II in Ostroleka and many others. Each indifferent person can place on the resource photos and description of the monument's status, find like-minded people, organize an action for the improvement of the territory. Through the addition of new photos and comments, "Memory Place" allows people to monitor monuments, where each object has its own history. We carry out this work not only in Russia, the CIS and Poland. Thanks to volunteers, memorable places are also put on the map of Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Spain, the USA, China, Japan and other countries,” said Nadezhda Usmanova, head of the Information Policy Department of the Russian Military Historical Society.

Photo by: official site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation


 Reference about the activities of The Russian Military Historical Society