MOSCOW, December 12 (RIA Novosti) - A statue in honor of Roman Abramovich has gone up in East Siberia after the Chelsea FC owner topped a poll to find the person who best personifies "a real Englishman," Russian media said on Friday.

Residents in the East Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk were asked in the poll, "Who do you consider a real Englishman?"

Some 30,000 people took part, and Chelsea FC owner Abramovich, 42, comfortably defeated Winston Churchill, James Bond, and David Beckham, among others.

The organizers of the poll, the local branch of the Russian-British Cultural Association, had planned to erect the one-meter statue in the centre of the city, a short distance from a monument to Lenin. However, they have not received permission from the mayor's office to do so, and it will now be placed in the city's James Shark English-theme pub.

The monument to the ex-governor of the sparsely populated Chukotka autonomous region is made of plaster covered with bronze paint. The sculptor, Konstantin Zinich, said he was particularly pleased with the way Abramovich's trademark stubble had turned out.

"How can you have an Englishman without ginger stubble?" he commented to Russia's life.ru news website.

The ceremony to mark the unveiling of the statue saw a Chukotka shaman sprinkle it with 'holy water.'

Abramovich has a residence in Knightsbridge, London.