Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions

The Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression (День памяти жертв политических репрессий) is an annual day when victims of political repression in the Soviet Union are remembered and mourned across the Russian Federation. The day has been observed since 30 October 1991. It was established by the Supreme Soviet of Russia on 18 October 1991, the same day as that body passed the "Law on the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repression", a key piece of legislation still in force. (The Memorial (society) has estimated that 12 million people qualified for rehabilitation under the terms of that act.) 30 October is an official date in the calendar of the Russian Federation. In 2007 President Putin visited the Butovo firing range on 30 October. Ten years later it was the day on which President Putin and Patriarch Kirill inaugurated the new Wall of Sorrow. This new use continues to be criticised by some Russian rights activists. They remind people that the date was originally chosen in the 1970s by protesting political prisoners in the USSR. As numbers of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners grow in today's Russia, they comment, this distinction is being obscured, undermined and forgotten by the new tradition. Certain other dates are marked each year in Russia by particular groups; sometimes in addition to 30 October, sometimes instead of that official date. In a number of places the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the Feast of Russia's New Martyrs and Confessors on the nearest Sunday to 25 January. The country's remaining Germans (28 August) and Poles living in Russia or visiting the country (2-3 September) each have their own days of "Remembrance and Sorrow". So do nations deported during the Second World War. In certain regions the victims of political repression are remembered on a different or additional date, e.g. the International Day of Remembrance at Sandarmokh on 5 August each year. There is also sometimes a separate regional date for their remembrance, as on 9-13 September in the Chelyabinsk Region.