Similar grass-roots memorials appeared all across the country. Russians brought flowers, candles and toys to the memorial places connected with Ukrainian history and culture (like monuments to Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka) or to the monuments, commemorating the victims of Soviet totalitarianism. Thus, in Ekaterinburg people came with flowers to the “Masks of Sorrow” monument, a sculpture by Ernst Neizvestny at the «12th kilometer», a mass grave of the victims of the political repressions.
State officials, considering grass-root memorials a visible form of the anti-war protests, tried to destroy them as soon as possible. The organisers of them as well as people, who placed flowers or came with antiwar signs, were arrested. The memorial at the Egoshinsky cemetery in Perm could survive less than two days. It was destroyed January 26, but a few days later it was restored again.
Information and photos were provided by the antiwar information portal Perm 36,6.