The story of the Stalin monument in Tskhinvali—and the punishment of those who damaged it—is not just a local incident. It is another symptom of a dubious cult of personality, which we analyze in the new episode of “The Era of Blurred Reference Points.”
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In June 2025, a monument to Joseph Stalin was erected near a bakery plant in Tskhinvali on the initiative of the enterprise’s director. A month later, unidentified individuals smashed the leader’s face. It was later revealed that these were three schoolboys. Their parents paid for the restoration of the monument, and the head of the plant withdrew the vandalism complaint from the local militsiya (police).
Remarkably, more than three and a half thousand Ossetians are listed by name in the Book of Memory of the Victims of Stalinist Repressions. Despite this, the erection of the sculpture without public discussion did not trigger any noticeable outrage. As reported by the JAMnews outlet, there are currently two monuments and one bust of Stalin in South Ossetia.
In the same year, the authorities of Tskhinvali once again temporarily restored the capital’s former name—Stalinir—for the celebration of Victory Day in World War II. “Kavkazsky Uzel” (Caucasian Knot) surveyed local residents, and the majority of them supported this decision. Meanwhile, the city’s main avenue also bears Stalin’s name.
Here is the attitude toward the figure of Stalin that prevails in Tskhinvali. A quote from an article published on JAMnews.
Aslan, an unemployed resident of the city, admits that lately people have been afraid to speak openly about such things—unlike in the past. He recalls a story from his youth:
“In Soviet times, right after technical college, I worked as a driver. Back then, it was common practice to hang a portrait of Stalin on the windshield of your truck. I hung one too. My grandmother, seeing this, grabbed me by the ear and ordered me to take the portrait down, tear it up, and scatter it to the wind. I asked why. She said I was a big fool. This man, according to her, brought a lot of grief to the people of the Caucasus. I only learned about the scale of the tragedy in the 1990s.”
Historical revisionism surrounding the figure of Stalin in the Caucasus is a complex and multi-layered process. It is clearly driven by both state structures and private initiatives, but the result is the same: the past is rewritten to suit today’s needs.
In this sense, the rehabilitation of Stalin’s image goes far beyond local memory or regional peculiarities. It is increasingly becoming part of a broader political logic—a logic in which the past is used to legitimize the present. In Putin’s Russia, the figure of Stalin is gradually being integrated into the narrative of a “strong state” and a “strong leader,” where repressions cease to be a crime and instead turn into an allegedly inevitable price for order, greatness, and control. This is a convenient historical construct: if Stalin “was cruel but effective,” then today’s violence can also be explained by state interests.
Thus, the memory of Stalinist repressions is not merely suppressed—it is reinterpreted and devalued. Stalin becomes a tool for justifying an authoritarian model of power, in which the suppression of dissent, fear, and coercion are presented as normal and even necessary elements of governance. When reference points are blurred, the past turns into a political resource: it allows one to avoid answering questions about freedom, responsibility, and the price of “stability,” replacing the conversation about the future with the myth of a strong hand that allegedly already “saved the country” once—and can do so again.