The Zhdanov Museum

nov’s return “a violation of the moral norms of society” and “revenge” for his erasure during the 1980s.

“Zhdanov is being raised on a shield,” wrote the columnist Andrei Kolesnikov. “And not just anywhere but in Mariupol, a city whose fate is tragic whichever side of the trenches you’re on. They want to underline that tragedy by re-mythologising a Stalinist hangman. Why such cynicism?”

Because Putin. And now, because Trump.