Cardboard

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, unknown perpetrators have been tearing down memorial plaques to victims of Stalin’s terror. Hundreds have vanished. For over a decade, the civic initiative Last Address has installed small metal markers on the façades of buildings from which people were taken to be executed or sent to camps. Today the project is under siege: many activists are in exile, and residents increasingly refuse new plaques out of fear. No vandals are ever identified, even where CCTV cameras watch the entrances. In response, new citizens’ groups, outside Last Address, print and hang cardboard replacements. With paper, glue, and markers, they fight for memory in the streets of Moscow, argue with building managers, speak to neighbors and guards, and trace the pattern of removals. Their amateur investigation asks: who is erasing these names, and why?