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Lenin statue blown up in central Russian city

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A Lenin statue was blown up in the early hours of Saturday in the central Russian city of Ryazan, a police source has told RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW, November 15 (RIA Novosti) - A Lenin statue was blown up in the early hours of Saturday in the central Russian city of Ryazan, a police source has told RIA Novosti.

No one was injured in the blast, which happened at around 3:00 a.m. (midnight GMT). Ryazan is some 200 kms (125 miles) from Moscow.

The police source said that the explosive device used had contained "the equivalent of some 200 grams of TNT."

"As a result of the blast, the two-meter alabaster monument was completely destroyed. An investigation is being carried out," said the source.

Ryazan's best known monument to the father of the Bolshevik Revolution is in the centre of the city. It is not known if police will take any special steps to protect it in the light of Saturday's events.

In mid-October, Russian police in the Volga city of Nizhny Novgorod detained a man as he tried to destroy another Lenin statue.

"The man, who was slightly drunk, attempted to pull off the head of Lenin's statue," a police spokesman said. "He brought a ladder from a nearby construction site and tried to destroy the monument," he said, adding that the attacker had only managed to tear off Lenin's right arm.

A large amount of Lenin statues were torn down in Russia following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., but many remain, with each large town or city usually boasting at least one.

The embalmed body of the Russian communist leader has been on public display in a glass case in a mausoleum on Red Square since his death in 1924. His continuing presence in the heart of Moscow has been an ongoing source of controversy since the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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