Moscow to Vote on Restoring Soviet Secret Police Founder’s Statue Updated: Feb. 19, 2021 Voters will decide what statue to place at the former KGB headquarters building that now houses the Federal Security Service (FSB). Alexei Zotov / TASS
The Moscow Civic Chamber plans to launch a citywide vote next week on whether to restore the statue of the Soviet secret police’s notorious founder 30 years after it was toppled, its senior member announced Friday.
The monument to “Iron” Felix Dzerzhinsky, who headed the Cheka secret police following the 1917 revolution, was removed from the KGB headquarters with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It currently stands in the open-air Fallen Monument Park an hour’s walk south of the building that now houses the Federal Security Service (FSB).