Last Address, Creating A Community Narrative

Two examples of "Last Address" plaques meant to commemorate the last place of residence for Stalin's Terror victims.

Beginning in December 2014, the Muscovite community began a grass-roots project to create its own commemorations. Inspired by Sergey Parkhomenko, a Moscow political journalist and social activist, the “Last Address” initiative was created as a private civic commemoration of Stalin’s victims. Parkhomenko partnered with Memorial, a non-profit human rights organization responsible for community remembrances of victims under the Soviet communist regime, in order to make his idea a reality. The premise of the Last Address initiative is to create constant, visible reminders of the Soviet’s oppressive past by means of placing plaques during victim’s last address before they were executed. The rectangular metal plaques contain an empty square opening on the left (where a portrait is meant to be), with basic victim information on the right(1). The memorial has generated local interest by the interactivity it uses to gather information. Muscovites may utilize the Last Address webpage to search for victim’s names, obtain permission by their neighbors and pay a slight fee to have a custom plaque created for the victim (2). The largest hurdle is neighborhood and building approval, both of which Parkhomenko has taken to on his own efforts. The results have been staggering: there are 80 commemorative signs across Moscow and have received over 900 applications. (3) Interestingly enough, the government has entered into an unspoken agreement: the creators of plaques do not ask for permission, and in return, are not harassed by the police (4).

Russian activists nail plaques on Moscow neighborhood walls as a grass-roots attempt to commemorate the ordinary victim’s of Stalin’s regime.

The Last Address embodies the private, civic narrative of Stalin’s Great Terror. It attempts to highlight the commonly unrecognized reality of the prosecutions, and this memorial’s charm lies in the fact that it highlights history across all neighborhoods of Moscow. The plaques focus on commemorating “ordinary” citizens, whose lives were affected gravely during the terror. It unveils the thread of political abuse and bloodshed deeply ingrained in the city’s roots that official memorials simply cannot. Remembrance is to be an act meditated on every day and on every street corner, rather than an isolated statue in direct supervision of the very government it seeks to critique. The Last Address has embodied the common civilian outrage and disgust of the government’s refusal to create an adequate memorial. The remorse has taken a productive, if not entrepreneurial, edge: dozens of private incidents combined to create its own public visible memorial. The plaques acknowledge the individuals that have gone missing, adding a new “plaqued” layer to the palimpsest of terror the city has undergone.