Director of Narva Museum: Moscow Court’s Decision Is an Attempt at Intimidation

Director of Narva Museum: Moscow Court’s Decision Is an Attempt at Intimidation

Today, Narva Museum learned from the rus.err.ee portal that the Moscow City Court has sentenced the museum’s director, Maria Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova, in absentia to ten years in prison.

The Narva Museum team expresses its full support for Director Maria Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova and considers the decision of the Moscow court a political attempt at intimidation.

Below is a statement from Maria Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova, Director of Narva Museum:

“Today I learned from Estonian journalists that a Russian court has sentenced me, a citizen of Estonia and the European Union, to 10 years in prison for my civic stance.

Throughout my life, I have never committed any unlawful acts. How the authorities of a neighboring totalitarian regime evaluate my activities is their internal matter. I see what is happening as a banal and no longer even original attempt to intimidate me personally, as well as those who call things by their proper names.

The answer to this is simple and unequivocal: it won’t work! The ‘Russian warship’ may continue on the course once declared by the defenders of Ukraine.”

Additional Information:

According to Mediazona, the Russian court found Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian army and “rehabilitating Nazism.” The prosecution had requested a 12-year sentence in a general regime penal colony. The court also banned her from administering websites for five years.

Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova has been on the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs’ wanted list since summer 2024. According to Russian investigators, between 2023 and 2025, she facilitated the placement of posters on the wall of Narva Castle depicting the Russian president and inscriptions about war crimes he allegedly committed.

For the past three years, on May 9, a poster has been hung on the wall of Narva Castle facing Russia, with inscriptions such as “Putin – war criminal” and “Putler.”