Karlepedia

— Mikhaylov Vitaliy, journalist, former aide to Romanov. Russian President V. V. Putin personally took an interest in the health of Grigory Vasilyevich and his modest pension — the same as that of all Russians. Several years ago, at the request of V. I. Matviyenko, Putin received the pensioner Romanov. They had much to remember, much to tell each other.

— Matviyenko Valentina, Governor of Saint Petersburg. Grigory Vasilyevich left many vivid pages in the history of our country.

— Vishnevsky Boris, journalist.

"A champion of the purity of Marxist-Leninist ideology," who bears personal responsibility for the oppressive atmosphere of suppressing all free thought that prevailed in Leningrad from 1970 to 1983, when he headed the Regional Committee of the Communist Party... A man who ordered schoolchildren to be forcibly herded into vocational schools and who waged fierce war against the specialized mathematics and language schools that produced independently minded people — people who were therefore anathema to the Regional Committee's First Secretary. A man during whose tenure writer and historian Konstantin Azadovsky and his wife were framed with planted drugs and sent to Kolyma for two years for possessing five grams of cannabis without intent to sell; gallery owner Georgy Mikhaylov was persecuted for his apartment exhibitions; and dissident Yuliy Rybakov was imprisoned on fabricated criminal charges.

None of this, however, in any way prevents the current Saint Petersburg authorities from glorifying him. In February 2003, the then-deputy prime minister Valentina Matviyenko solemnly congratulated Romanov on his 80th birthday, and in June 2008, following the death of this symbol of Stagnation, the city's governor declared that "fate generously endowed Grigory Vasilyevich with the talent of a leader, a man responsible not only for himself but for others." There is nothing surprising in this: it was under Romanov, as is well known, that the current governor rose from an instructor of a district Komsomol committee to First Secretary of the regional Komsomol committee. How could she now fail to ensure a worthy perpetuation of his memory! And it matters not that such perpetuation is a spit in the face of all those who experienced firsthand the delights of the Romanov era.

— Strugatsky Boris, writer.

It is a disgrace! A memorial plaque is being erected to a ghoul who despised the intelligentsia. His hatred had an almost pathological character — it was nearly a disease. In essence, this is a monument to Soviet Power, from which we have freed ourselves.

— Basilashvili Oleg, actor.

Every time I walk past that plaque I will spit on it. A vile little dwarf! He crushed the arts; he had Nobel laureate Iosif Brodsky arrested and then expelled from the city; he so hated Sergei Yursky (and drove him out of the city) that once, having spotted during a television program a report on a photo exhibition in which he recognized Yursky's nose (!) in one of the photographs, he had the editor of that program dismissed. He hounded and drove out Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov…

— Popov Evgeniy, writer.

Oleg Basilashvili has publicly promised to spit on that plaque every time he walks past it. And so the authorities themselves kindle discord and encourage low-grade civil war.

— Brodsky Mikhail, representative of the Governor of Saint Petersburg in the Legislative Assembly.

Yes, we received a petition from 59 cultural figures who are against the memorial plaque. So what? Maybe 500 cultural figures are in favor.

— Romanov Grigory, Soviet Party official.

As for manifestations of anti-Soviet sentiment, I did indeed fight them on principle. The Fifth Directorate of the Committee for State Security assisted me in this, including personally Viktor Vasilyevich Cherkesov, who was also fashionably accused of strangling everything progressive. Not progressive — anti-Soviet. There is a very serious difference between those two concepts. There was a case when I halted the publication of Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev's book "Byzantine Legends." The book's editor was Sofya Polyakova — a Jewess. I invited Likhachev to see me and asked him directly: "Why do you involve such people in your work?" He asked: "Which people?" I said: "Those who aren't needed." He said: "Jews, you mean?" I said: "Yes." For some reason that offended him too, although I was right — Jews at that time held anti-Soviet positions, and we were obliged to obstruct their activities.