OREANDA-NEWS. February 25, 2009. Dmitry Medvedev answered a letter from Vera Ganina, the mother of Russian citizen Dmitry Ganin, who died during the tragic events of April 2007 in Tallinn.

Vera Yakovlevna Ganina sent President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev a letter expressing her gratitude for the attention, sympathy and concern shown to her family:

“I am grateful to the people of Russia and the leadership of the Russian Federation for its support for me and my daughter in those days of April 2007, when we were afflicted by this terrible grief. These days I am not at all well; I can no longer work the way I did before, when Dima was alive. This sense of grief will not go away, and I don’t have the same sort of strength to face the day that I had before; I am very grateful that during such a difficult time you have found it possible to support me financially and arranged an allowance for me.

I know that every mother would seek to defend her son, but Dima really was a good person, moral, respectful, very kind and trusting, not a bully, and he had many friends. The people here in Mustvee were surprised when Dima died, because he never did anyone any harm and got along with everybody. So many people came to say goodbye to him! My son was killed and then they managed to slander and rob him. That night I repeatedly called Dima. He was calm and promised to call me later. He was supposed to come home for the weekend on Friday 27 April, but on 27 April at 12.30am there was no answer and I realised that something bad had happened to him. Dima never broke his promises to me.

I am grateful to the Russian people in Russia and in other countries and to our compatriots in the countries of the whole world for believing that my son was a good man.”

On 22 February Dmitry Medvedev sent Vera Ganina his reply, which reads, in part:

“I have received your warm and very moving letter.

Again, please accept my sincere words of support and deep sympathy for your grief. It is a grief shared by millions of Russian citizens. The death of your son during the dramatic events in April 2007 shocked us all.

Dmitry had a heightened sense of justice and openly protested against the sacrilegious plan to shift the memorial to the soldiers who rescued Europe from fascism. He rightly believed this was a desecration of their memory. Your son defended not only the heroic past. He defended the civil dignity of people who honour the memory of those who gave their lives for the sake of world peace.

I am convinced that any attempt to justify Nazism and slander our victorious heroes would lead to an unacceptable and hypocritical revision of history, a forgetting of its lessons. Russia will firmly and consistently oppose this. I want to assure you that we will firmly insist that those responsible for the death of Dmitry Ganin be found and suffer their just punishment.”

Dmitry Ganin was killed in Tallinn during the rioting on 26-27 April 2007 related to the Estonian government’s decision to dismantle and move the so-called Bronze Soldier from the city centre. This monument to the Soldier-Liberator was erected in 1947 where the remains of 13 Soviet soldiers are buried, soldiers who died in the liberation of Estonia from German troops in autumn 1944.