Kiev rejects monument to Stolypin made in Russia

The city government of Kiev spoke against installing a Russian-made monument to a tsarist statesman in the Ukrainian capital, RIA-Novosti reports.


The gift was proposed by the Russian Minister of Culture, Alexander Avdeyev, in an attempt to commemorate Pyotr Stolypin in connection with the anniversary of his death. Stolypin was shot dead by an assassin in Kiev in 1911.


The head of Kiev's commission on culture and tourism called the gesture “either a provocation or an extremely thoughtless move." "Stolypin’s reforms destroyed the Ukrainian peasantry and Ukrainian traditions, forced a large part of the nation to move to Siberia and bled Ukraine dry,” he added.