Estonia has allocated close to a million euros towards the removal of Soviet-era monuments from various locations across the state through 2022, APA reports citing ERR.
Estonian Government Office spokesperson Jevgenia Värä said: "€916,405 was allocated to Ministry of Defense agencies towards activities related to the removal from the public space of 'red' monuments which pose a security threat."
The €916,405 was allocated for the physical removal of statues, monuments, graves, plaques and other installations, dating to the Soviet occupation of Estonia.
An additional €60,000 was allocated towards a working party set up by the government and tasked with overseeing the removal work and the creation of a neutral grave marker to replace Soviet-oriented headstones, in the case of graves, Vära went on.
Four more monuments required separate treatment given their location – the Estonian Defense Forces (EDF) cemetery in Tallinn, and the Maarjamäe development in Pirita, also in Tallinn.
A further 74 monuments were adjudged to be "neutral" and so will not be altered or removed.
So far, around 830 sets of human remains have been thus re-interred.
The Ministry of Defense War Graves Committee, along with the national war museum at Viimsi, were tasked with much of this work.