For the sixth year in a row on July 6, on the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinist Repression in Moldova, the names of those who were executed and those who suffered as a result of the repression will be read at the old entrance to the Chisinau Park “Valea Morilor”, IPN reports, quoting a press release of the Orthodox Brotherhood in honor of Saint Paisy Velichkovski of Chisinau.

The commemoration prayer will be held near the Memorial Stone that was placed in 1995 within the precincts of the local NKVD. During a year, since the summer of 1940 until 1941, the people there were interrogated, tortured and shot dead for political reasons. These were people of different ethnicities, social sections of Bessarabian society: Romanians, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Gagauz people who were destroyed as “anti-Soviet elements”. In 1941, after the Soviet troops left Chisinau, over 100 bodies were found in the identified mass graves.

“In 1995, with the assistance of MPs Vasile Șoimaru and Valeriu Muravschi, a monument in memory of the victims of Stalinist repression was set up. The words on the Memory Stone dedicated to those tragic events said: “Passerby, bow to honor the memory of the Bessarabians who were massacred here by the Bolshevik executioners in June 1940 – July 1941”. In 2018, the stone was moved by individuals and the summer terrace of a complex of restaurants started to be erected in that place,” Svetlana Chiriac, a member of the Orthodox Brotherhood in honor of Saint Paisy Velichkovski of Chisinau, stated for IPN.

According to Svetlana Chiriac, the Orthodox Brotherhood in honor of Saint Paisy Velichkovski of Chisinau sent letters to the Ministry of Culture and the Chisinau City Hall, asking these to intervene and solve the problem. “The building of the summer terrace in that place is illegal as the works are executed over a monument of culture. The Institute of History showed that the Memory Stone was placed in a historical place where over 100 people were tortured and shot dead for political reasons,” said Svetlana Chiriac. She noted that the commemoration is not political in character. “We are Orthodox Christians and we pray for all the people who were buried there and for those who shot those people.”

The commemoration event is organized by the Orthodox Brotherhood in honor of Saint Paisy Velichkovski of Chisinau with the assistance of the Chisinau City Hall and the Metropolitan Church of Moldova.

The event will take place on July 6 between 10am and 1pm.