Lawyer Iulian Rusanovschi accuses the local authorities of Chisinau of opposing the restoration of the monument to Simion Murafa, Alexei Mateevici and Andrei Hodorogea, which was located near the Metropolitan Cathedral. The restoration project was initiated by the Association of Romanian Orthodox Christian Students of Moldova. The Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) avoids adopting the decision to reconstruct the monument even if the issue was repetitively included in the agenda of its meetings.
In a news conference at IPN on April 24, Iulian Rusanovschi said he put forward this initiative three years ago, when he was the Association’s chairman. It was rather hard to identify the location of the monument, but he succeeded with the help of the maps and photographs he possessed. The designing works are close to completion. The project is an apolitical one and was designed with money from sponsorships, not with public money. The councilors should only authorize the works to build the monument.
The young man also said that the Association obtained the consent of the Ministry of Culture’s Historical Monuments Commission and of the Academy of Sciences. They only need the approval of the CMC. Since September 29, 2012 until March 2013, the project had been examined by the commissions of the Chisinau City Hall. Ultimately, it was removed from the agenda because of the opposition of the Communist faction. It’s not clear why the mayor of Chisinau does not sign an ordinance to give consent, as he did in the case of other monuments.
Director general of the Agency for Monument Inspection and Restoration Ion Stefanita told the same news conference that this initiative is supported and the National Council of Historical Monuments on January 24 unanimously approved the monument restoration plan. “I cannot understand why the CMC hasn’t yet taken a decision in this respect. The Council is to only give its consent to starting the works to build the monument, which existed in the old part of Chisinau,” he stated.
The monument to the three martyrs, dedicated to the heavyweights of the 1917 national movement in Bessarabia, was erected in 1923, but was destroyed in 1940.