A crowd of about 500 mostly elderly citizens waved red hammer-and-sickle flags and cheered as speakers denounced Kremlin moves to balance Stalin's hero status with reminders of the oppression and violence that marked his rule."Again we reaffirmed that Stalin's era was the most productive, victorious and unique in the history of our state," Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov said.
"I spit in the faces of anyone who talks to me of de-Stalinisation," said Vladimir Markov, a doctor who worked with the Soviet space programme. "Stalin was our atom and our universe. Stalin was our path to the stars. My generation has him in their blood. You see wisened, courageous faces of these old people."