Stalin rises again from ashes of memorial

MOSCOW - Siberian tourist chiefs have put political correctness to one side and decided to rebuild a Communist-era memorial complex dedicated to Josef Stalin.

The Krasnoyarsk region hopes that the resurrected "Pantheon of Stalin" will attract more Russian and foreign tourists to the remote area.

The original complex covered an area of over 400sq m, contained a museum devoted to "The Man of Steel", and had as its focal point a life-size bronze statue of Stalin with his right hand tucked into his greatcoat.

The complex was shut in 1961 during a de-Stalinisation campaign triggered by Nikita Khrushchev's secret 1956 speech that denounced Stalin.

The statue of Stalin was tossed into the local river in the late 1980s when Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of Glasnost began to bite. What was left of the complex was virtually destroyed by a fire in 1995.

It was originally built in the area by prison inmates to honour the fact that Stalin was exiled to Siberia by the Tsarists at the beginning of the 20th century for subversive activity.

Yevgeny Pashenko, an aide to the local governor, said the restoration project - to be ready for next year's tourist period - was inoffensive.

"The idea was proposed by travel companies," he told Russian media.

"It is a purely commercial project to attract tourists and there are no politics behind it."

But the local chairman of human rights group Memorial, Aleksei Babia, said the project was an ominous sign.

"This is part of a big public relations campaign which is not just being conducted by the Communists but by the federal authorities too," he told a local radio station.

"Stalin, his name, and his deeds are constantly exaggerated in a justificatory way."

- INDEPENDENT