Solovetsky Stone, Moscow

The Solovetsky Stone is a huge granite boulder set in the middle of Lubyanka Square to commemorate political prisoners and victims of political repression in the Soviet Union. The stone originates from the Solovetsky archipelago in the White Sea, commonly known as Solovki, which is the former location of the infamous prison camp, part of the Gulag system, where thousands of people met their end in the 1920s-50s.

The placement of the Stone – outside the KGB headquarters, previously occupied by the monument of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret service – is symbolic and was preceded by great logistical effort. First it was shipped by sea and then carried by rail from the Big Solovetsky Island to Arkhangelsk, and from there to Moscow. Originally, the Stone was placed in a park near the Polytechnic Museum on Lubyanka Square in 1990 by activists in a bid to establish the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions in the USSR (now officially celebrated). Later, it was moved to take the spot of the "Iron Felix" dismantled in 1991.

The Solovetsky Stone is one of the first and perhaps the most important monument of its kind in the former USSR. The inscription at the foot of the pedestal reads: "This stone is delivered by the "Memorial" society members from the Solovki Special Camp and established in memory of the victims of the totalitarian regime."

The memorial was inaugurated on October 30, 1990, the day previously observed unofficially since 1974 as the day of solidarity and resistance – often by way of riots and hunger strikes held in the prison camps. Ever since 2007, each year on the eve of October 30 people gather at the Stone to read out names of the Muscovites executed during the Great Terror years. The Solovetsky Stone is also one of the traditional places in Moscow to voice protest.