Statue of Soviet dissident and Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn removed from waterfront in Vladivostok, Russia, for relocation to a park

A monument to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn has been removed from Korabelnaya Embankment in central Vladivostok. It will be installed in the Park of Faith and Hope in the coming days, city officials told Interfax.Plans to move the monument to the park became public in early March. The Pacific Fleet’s leadership and veterans proposed the move, saying the monument was “out of keeping with the themes of the memorials and monuments” on the embankment.Vladivostok officials said the sculpture was not a designated cultural heritage site and that the Council for Culture and the Arts had decided to relocate it.City officials said there had been “a lot of criticism from historians and local history experts, who pointed out that Solzhenitsyn arrived in Vladivostok by plane and that a monument to him on the embankment among warships was out of place.”The bronze monument, more than 2.6 meters tall, was unveiled in central Vladivostok on September 2, 2015. Sculptor Pyotr Chegodayev created it. The writer’s son, Yermolai Solzhenitsyn, attended the unveiling.Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in May 1994, flying to Magadan and then to Vladivostok before traveling to Moscow by train.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.