According to Georgy Filimonov, the region's Governor, the decision to commission the monument, which he said was nearly complete, had come about following multiple “requests from the public”, adding that it would be installed at a local museum housed in a building where Stalin lived briefly while in exile in 1911–1912.
Acknowledging the “ambiguous interpretation” of Stalin’s legacy, Filimonov said that Russians should nevertheless “recognise the great achievements and know the history” of their country and “be proud” of it. “Our history is a single and indivisible chain of interconnected, interlocking links in the historical process, each of which moulded the strength, spirit and will of our great nation,” Filimonov wrote.
The leadership of Joseph Stalin, which lasted from 1924 to 1953 and set the basis for Soviet Russia's transformation from a backward peasant nation into an industrial superpower with glorious achievements, was condemned by his revisionist successor Nikita Khrushchev three years after Stalin’s death.
