Monday, December 29, 2008

Stalin in running for greatest Russian

From Red Square. Well, Moscow, anyway:
The former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin may have killed millions of his own people but this weekend he could be chosen by Russians as their greatest-ever countryman.

Inspired by the British competition 100 Greatest Britons, one of Russia's biggest television stations Rossiya has been conducting a nationwide poll for much of this year.

From an original list of 500 candidates now there are just 12 names left from which viewers can select their all-time hero.

The winner will be announced on Sunday.

More than 3.5 million people have already voted and Stalin - born an ethnic Georgian - has been riding high for many months.

In the summer he held the number one slot but was knocked down several places after the producer of the show appealed to viewers to vote for someone else.

Amongst the others on the list are Ivan the Terrible, Lenin, Catherine the Great and Alexander Pushkin.

Article here. Goodness, what's next? Jews voting for Hitler as Germany's greatest leader? I see Ivan the Terrible is also in the top 12. I guess he wasn't bloodthirsty enough to zoom past Stalin and Lenin.

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