A procedure for the removal of World War Two Red Army soldiers’ remains in Lithuania will be drawn up in the coming months, the Culture Ministry says.
The clarification has been requested by Artūras Visockas, mayor of the northern town of Šiauliai.
“The Culture Ministry has drawn up the procedure you mentioned [on the removal of Soviet soldiers’ remains] and submitted it for inter-institutional coordination, after which the document should be submitted to the government,” Ramunė Vaičiulytė, an adviser to the culture minister, told BNS. “We hope that this will happen in the coming months, but it all depends on the pace of the inter-institutional coordination.”
In a recent Facebook post, Visockas pointed out that it will soon be a year since the former government promised to prepare a procedure for the removal of Red Army graves.
Šiauliai, Lithuania’s fourth biggest town, hosts a burial site of Red Army soldiers killed in World War Two in the town centre.
“Why is the cemetery of Soviet soldiers still in central Šiauliai? Next to the cathedral and the municipality. I remind you that 81.79 percent of the participants of a survey in Šiauliai were in favour of moving the cemetery,” the mayor wrote, adding that politicians were dragging their feet in preparing a procedure.
The so-called Desovietisation Commission decided in August last year that the remains of Soviet soldiers buried in town squares should be removed and reburied in accordance with international treaties.
This decision was made after considering appeals from the municipalities of Šiauliai and Varėna.
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