In an announcement sure to further dismay human rights activists and historians in Russia and abroad, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has announced that portraits of Josef Stalin would be featured from now on as part of future city celebrations, Intefax reports.

The mayor made the announcement yesterday at a session of city government officials, following plans released last month for informational posters featuring Stalin’s role in winning World War II to be placed throughout the city in the run-up to May 9 Victory Day celebrations.

"I am not an admirer of Stalin,” said the mayor. "I am an admirer of objective history.”

Luzhkov then accused the Russian media of misrepresenting the city’s plans for the Victory Day posters and giving a false impression that big portraits of the dictator would be literally hung around the city.

"We’re going to do it in appropriate proportions,” he said.

Human rights ...

Organizers of a massive anti-government protest in Kaliningrad have come together in a political coalition that they hope will provide a viable alternative to the ruling United Russia party, Kasparov.ru reports.

Rally organizer and coalition co-founder Konstantin Doroshok said that a founding assembly was held on Wednesday, but leaders have yet to settle on a name for the new union.

The January 30 protest in Kaliningrad, in which between 7 and 12 thousand people participated, was notable both for its massive size and for the diversity of political forces represented. The new coalition features similar diversity, including the Kaliningrad branches of the parties Solidarity, Justice, A Just Russia, Patriots of Russia, Yabloko, and the Communist Party.

According to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, coalition leaders invited the local branch of the Right Cause party to join the union, but leader Mikhail Tsikel declined the proposal. The ultranationalist Liberal ...