A bust of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Russia's Siberia region could be removed by local authorities.
Stalin supporters in the city of Surgut unveiled the bust on September 15.
Yekaterina Shvidkaya, the head of the city's information department, said just hours after the unveiling that the bust had been placed illegally near a site allocated for a monument dedicated to the victims of Stalin's 1930s purge policies.
"Very likely the decision will be made that the bust was placed there illegally. If that is proven, the bust will be removed," Shvidkaya said.
Surgut was one of the most notorious sites of Stalin's gulag forced-labor-camp system, where hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens served their prison terms.
Descendants of people who served time in the camps still live in Surgut and in the surrounding areas.
