Lenin's home town appeals for his statues

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 his likeness has been systematically beheaded, defaced, dismantled and vandalised, but statues of Vladimir Lenin are to make a comeback in the town where he was born.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 his likeness has been systematically beheaded, defaced, dismantled and vandalised, but statues of Vladimir Lenin are to make a comeback in the town where he was born.

Sergei Morozov, governor of Ulyanovsk region where the Russian revolutionary grew up, has made a request to the other governors: "Give me your unwanted Lenin statues."

About 1,800 statues were erected during the Communist era, often dominating a town's central square with an outstretched hand frequently pointing to a bright Socialist future that never materialised.

Many are now rotting in damp warehouses, if they have not already been melted down.

Mr Morozov's idea is to create an enormous open-air museum in the town of Ulyanovsk which takes its name from Lenin's real surname - Ulyanov.

Ulyanovsk, on the river Volga, attracted many tourists in the Soviet era.

A museum and Lenin exhibition attracted 5,000 visitors a day in peak times, but numbers have dwindled to just 100 a day and that, officials argue, is bad for the town's economy.

Mr Morozov is said to want to reverse the policy of his predecessor who encouraged the region's inhabitants to forget about Lenin.

His idea is not entirely original. Moscow boasts an open-air collection of Soviet statues near Gorky Park, but it is on a relatively modest scale.