MOSCOW -- Busts of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and the founder of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin have been unveiled in downtown Moscow.
In all, seven busts of Soviet leaders, also including Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Yury Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko, and Mikhail Gorbachev, were unveiled on Moscow's so-called Alley of Rulers on September 22.
A woman held a one-person protest in front of the busts on September 22, holding a poster with verses of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova titled To Stalin's Defenders, condemning Stalin's regime.
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In recent years, the number of people publicly supporting Josef Stalin has dramatically increased across Russia.
Stalin museums, monuments, and statues are being unveiled in Russian towns and cities.
But they have been accompanied by protests of activists calling to remember victims of Stalin’s Great Purge campaign in the 1930s when millions were executed or sent to Gulag labor camps in Siberia and Kazakhstan.
The so-called Alley of Rulers was opened in Moscow in 2016 with what was then 33 statues of historic figures who have ruled Russia since the 9th century.