No plans to close Estonia's Barclay de Tolly mausoleum

There are no plans to close a mausoleum for Russian Field Marshal Barclay de Tolly in southern Estonia, councilors say, despite a decision to remove a statue of him from the Latvian capital.
While a monument to Prince Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly (1761-1818) stands prominently in Latvia's capital, his body lies in a mausoleum near Tõrva in Estonia along with his wife.
The site is still popular with tourists today, even though he died more than 200 years ago.
Maido Ruusmann, chairman of Tõrva municipal council and member of Riigikogu, told "Aktuaalne kaamera" that the Latvian statue could be brought to Estonia.

"There has to be a limit when looking back into history. If we consider Barclay de Tolly as a person, he was a military commander of Baltic German-Scottish origin who served the Tsarist Russian Empire. However, it's also important to understand why his mausoleum is located here — he owned the Jõgeveste Manor and wanted to live here. What's remarkable in history is that he was reportedly a man who learned the Estonian language," Ruusmann said.
Barclay de Tolly has many connections with Estonia, said historian and director of the Estonian War Museum Hellar Lill
"It's up to the Latvians to feel how they choose about it. But in our case — he is not associated with the tragic events in our history. The events that Barclay de Tolly was involved in don't hurt anyone today. He did not act as a military commander directly leading forces in Estonia. Barclay de Tolly, being here among us, brings an important part of world history — the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) — right to our doorstep," he told the show.
Both Latvia and Estonia have removed USSR-era monuments and symbols from their public spaces after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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Editor: Marko Tooming, Helen Wright