Bust of Stalin ruled illegal and likely to be torn down

A row has erupted over the Stalin bust in the  city of Surgut where many residents are the descendants of victims of political repression in Soviet times. Yekaterina Shvidkaya, spokeswoman for the Surgut administration, said: 'The bust of Stalin that was erected today has been deemed illegal. 

'A commission... has approved a place nearby for installing a monument to the repressed and the funds are being collected.' She predicted the bust close to the Ob River 'will be removed'.

Another group applied in May to erect a bust to the USSR's wartime leader. 

A decision was taken that the dispute should be solved by a public council due to be set up after elections to the State Duma - Russia's lower house of parliament - on 18 September. 

Despite this, activists created their own council that decided in favour of putting up the statue.

Pavel Akimov, who initiated the installation of a monument to former political prisoners, condemned the plans to build a Stalin statue nearby.

'The tears of those people who had been sent here have not dried yet,' he said, according to TASS. 'Some 9,000 people were deported in 1932 - that is half of this community's citizens. Erecting the monument here is blasphemy.'

The administration of Surgut, in the Khanty-Mansi autonomous region, said tensions flared over proposed installation of the monument due to the historic memories of the local citizens. 

'Political prisoners were deported here, there was a whole village with people in exile,' said a local official. 'Now their relatives live in Surgut and, of course, they have a very negative assessment of the situation.'

Surgut was a key location in Stalin's gulag forced-labour-camp system, in which hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens served prison terms after politically-motivated sentences.