Khimki War Memorial is a memorial to two

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

pilots and four

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

soldiers in Novoluzhinskoe cemetery,

Khimki Khimki ( rus, Химки, p=ˈxʲimkʲɪ) is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, 18.25 kilometres northwest of central Moscow, and immediately beyond the Moscow city boundary. History Origins and formation Khimki was initially a railway station tha ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. The memorial and the graves were originally located near Leningradskoye Shosse, a major highway leading from

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

to the international Sheremetyevo Airport. The remains of the pilots and soldiers were exhumed under the sanction of Khimki authorities in April 2007, and reburied later with military honours to a newly built memorial on the Alley of Heroes in the Novoluzhinskoe cemetery, in the centre of Khimki.

"Removal" controversy

The original "demolition" of the war memorial on April 18 created a controversy in Russia. Several sources reported that the remains of the war heroes were lost. According to an early report, officials used bulldozers to demolish the memorial, leaving some of the remains on site. Several sources reported that the remains of the war heroes were lost. This was later proved to be not true. Among the reasons for the relocation the officials of Khimki cited the complaints about prostitutes hanging around at night. Another incentive for the removal of the graves was the need to widen the highway. The communist columnist, Anatoly Baranov, argued that it was the prostitutes who were to be lifted, not the veterans. On Sunday, April 22, a group of members of the Union of Communist Youth staged a protest at the site. The militsiya dispersed the meeting with force, as it was not sanctioned by the authorities. Several of those taking part were arrested; they later claimed to have been beaten and declared a hunger strike. The Khimki war memorial relocation incident was widely and not always appropriately used in relation to the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn controversy at the time.

Reburial

On 6 May 2007, the major TV channels of Russia showed the footage of the reburial of the exhumed remains at the Novoluzhinskoe cemetery, located in the centre of the city. The solemn ceremony was attended by about 1,000 people, including many veterans. An armoured carrier led the funerary procession. "The fallen heroes were remembered with a triple gun salvo from a Moscow Military District regiment."

References

{{coord, display=title, 55, 53, 45, N, 37, 25, 5, E World War II memorials in Russia Soviet military memorials and cemeteries Khimki Monuments and memorials in Russia

"Removal" controversy

Reburial

See also

References