Town of submariners honours killed occupants
A monument is erected in the north Russian navy base of Polyarny for local men killed in Ukraine.
Construction works are ongoing on the so-called Alley of Heroes in Polyarny, the Northern Fleet town.
The erection of the monument named ‘three warriors’ is funded by a regional development program managed by Murmansk Governor Andrei Chibis. According to local authorities, it symbolises three generations of warriors, from the 2WW to the onslaught on Ukraine.
It will be officially opened in ceremony held in late August or early September.
The three warriors carry heavy weapons and have their fingers on the trigger. They will stand in front of two stone plates with the names of 55 local soldiers killed in armed conflicts, among them the attack on Ukraine and occupation of Ukrainian regions.
“This memorial will be a place of commemoration and pride for everyone that honours the deeds of the heroes that protected our land until their last breath,” a local social media page reports.
Polyarny has a population of about 17,000 and is part of the closed military municipality of Aleksandrovsk. Until 1947 it served as headquarter base for the Northern Fleet and housed the Soviet submarines that operated in Arctic waters. Today, Polyarny is base for a fleet of diesel-powered subs, as well as a fleet of minesweepers.
The new war monument in town is similar to hundres of others erected across the country. They express no peace and no reconciliation. On the contrary, they tell a story about a country preparing for continued war.
In the Kola Peninsula, several new memorials have popped up over the past two years. In the small military town of Luostary, a monument devoted to cavalry men killed in Ukraine was unveiled in April 2023, and in Zaozersk, the navy base, two new memorials popped up in the course of late 2023 and early 2024.
In the town of Lovozero, a new monument shows a soldier with a raised machine gun pointing straight against the local village.
From before, Polyarny has a number of war memorials. It also has a monument that honours the infamous SMERSH counter-intelligence.
