The “Sad Angel” was installed in St. Petersburg in memory of the medical workers who died during the pandemic.
In St. Petersburg, the sculpture “Sad Angel” was opened three times in memory of the doctors who died during the pandemic.
The event, which was supposed to unite the authorities and the city’s residents, unexpectedly turned into a political scandal.
None of the officials appeared at the public ceremony scheduled for March 4.
The governor, Alexander Beglov, and the head of the Smolny health committee, Dmitry Lisovets, visited the memorial beforehand – separately, in a small circle of their subordinates.
The creator of the dismantled “memorial wall” with photos of doctors who died after the first wave of the pandemic, Irina Maslova, and the deputy of the city parliament who supported her, Boris Vishnevsky, demanded the mayor’s resignation.
Alexey Yakovlev, the former chief physician of the Botkin Hospital for Infectious Diseases, came to the “public ceremony”.
The St. Petersburg administration fired him at the very beginning of the pandemic, and Yakovlev moved to Moscow.
All this time he worked in the “red zone” and repeatedly publicly criticized the actions of the St. Petersburg authorities in the fight against the coronavirus.
Another controversial doctor – former intensive care specialist Sergei Sayapin – was present at the ceremony.
At the beginning of the pandemic, he publicly announced the dire situation of health workers at Pokrovskaya Hospital, who were left without protective equipment.
As a result, he himself contracted the coronavirus, was later fired, and moved to another job.
It was decided to install the “Sad Angel” as a tribute to the deceased medical workers in continuation of the project of the popular “Memorial Wall” with photos of the medics on the fence of the building under renovation near Nevsky Prospekt.
The “wall” was created by the civic activist Irina Maslova, the director of the Foundation for Prevention of Socially Significant Diseases “Astarta”.
In November, the wall had to be dismantled.
Maslova, together with Artemenko, transferred all the materials to the Museum of Political History and continued to develop the project online.
Currently, there are 148 photographs posted there.
Angela found a place on a bench that activists from the community “Friends of Karpovka” had previously installed near the First Medical University so that patients discharged from its clinics could wait for a taxi.
With the help of Boris Vishnevsky, a Yabloko deputy in the city parliament, the women got to know Alexander Beglov’s subordinate, Ivan Gromov, the head of the Petrograd district.
The district official allocated a place for the memorial and agreed with local businessmen on its financing.
In the evening of March 2 the sculpture was delivered and installed.
And the sculptor’s widow, Maria Kasyanenko, was asked to come the next morning – they said that the governor wanted to discuss the opening on March 4, she told “Bumaga”.
Artemenko and Maslova were not invited to this meeting.
As a result, Kasyanenko, according to her words, ended up at a “spontaneous event”: she opened a sculpture of her husband together with Beglov.
In his speech, Beglov confused her name and surname, calling her Marina Shustrova.
Beglov was accompanied by Oleg Ergashev, the vice-governor in charge of health, and Ivan Gromov, the head of the district.
“The secret unveiling of the sculpture caused a mass outcry on social media.
“This is complete absurdity and a loss of prestige for the administration,” said BBC Galina Artemenko.
Maslova, in turn, called for the governor’s resignation.
She was supported by Boris Vishnevsky”.
The initiator of the memorial, Galina Artemenko (right), spoke about the “strength of the city” and how “people should remain human even in the most difficult circumstances.
The creator of the memorial wall, Irina Maslova (left), said that the unveiling of the angel was “alive and real”.
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“After that, they started sending me links to publications that smeared me, Ira, and Vishnevsky,” says Galina Artemenko.
Channel 78, which is part of Yuri Kovalchuk’s National Media Group, published an article titled “Head of the Union of Prostitutes Demands Beglov’s Resignation”.
In fact, Irina Maslova led such a union as part of the “Silver Rose” project to protect commercial sex workers, and now she helps HIV-positive people at the “Astarta” foundation.
In the evening, Deputy Vishnevsky announced on social media that the chief physicians from the list of those invited to the public ceremony had allegedly been called by the Health Ministry and asked to come two hours before.
In fact, at 10 a.m., the head of the committee, Dmitry Lisovets, and several chief physicians laid flowers near the sculpture.
Lisovets told journalists that he didn’t care what time he laid the flowers, but that he wanted to do it in a “less public format.
In the public format, the ceremony was “lively and real,” said the BBC’s Irina Maslova afterwards.
She followed the script that Galina Artemenko had sent to the district administration, which provided the event with a microphone, an amplifier, and a moderator.
Journalists noticed the Smolny license plates on a car parked nearby.
However, not a single official appeared at the event.
The BBC asked the press service of Smolny: “Why did the governor unveil the sculpture in memory of the deceased doctors one day before the ceremony, while the Health Committee, together with the chief doctors, visited him two hours before the ceremony? And who initiated such a schedule?”
But Smolny replied succinctly: “None of the public organizations submitted requests to hold events related to the memorial.”
According to the official version on the Smolny website, “the monument was opened by the sculptor’s widow, Maria Kasyanenko, and the head of the Petrograd district, Ivan Gromov.
And the governor found himself beside them after visiting the First Medical University and said during the ceremony: “I am grateful for being invited to the opening of the memorial”.
“Today was a very busy day at work, unfortunately I couldn’t attend,” Elena Grigorieva, the press secretary of the head of the district, explained the absence of the head of the district.
She clarified that Ivan Gromov was present at yesterday’s event.
Asked who organized yesterday’s event, the press secretary could not answer: “It did not depend entirely on us, but it is unclear why there is such a fuss about the date.
Yesterday there was one event, today there is another.
The monument was unveiled, some people were there yesterday, others are here today,” she said.