For at least the third time in a month, critics of Vladimir Putin have put up a mock gravestone bearing the name of the Russian president.
This time, it was in his hometown of St. Petersburg, where activists put up a sign that looked like a granite slab in front of the city's landmark St. Isaac's Cathedral -- and then posted it on the Internet.
The black poster featured a picture of Putin, his name, and an inscription reading, "He betrayed the people of Russia."
It also read "1952-2019" -- the former a reference to the year Putin, a native of St. Petersburg who has held power as Russia's president or prime minister since 1999, was born.
Activist group Agit Russia said on Twitter that the mock headstone was its handiwork.
"We wanted to say this: Because of the antipeople laws that have been adopted, the constant lies, and the disgusting [method of] rule, Putin is dead to the citizens of Russia," the group said in a tweet with a photo of the poster in front of St. Isaac's.
The cathedral is one of the most recognizable buildings in St. Petersburg, where longtime Soviet KGB officer Putin was born, grew up, and began his political career in the 1990s before his move to Moscow and his rise to the presidency.
The tweet said that St. Petersburg was "taking the baton" -- apparently a reference to similar political pranks carried out in Moscow and the city of Naberezhnye Chelny, in the Tatarstan region, in the past month.
Two activists in Naberezhnye Chelny were sentenced to jail terms of 28 days and six days in March after they put up a mock Putin gravestone there.
