Buses decorated with portraits of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin will appear on the streets of the Latvian and Estonian capitals during V-E Day celebrations on May 9, a campaign organizer said on Tuesday.
The leader of the "Bus of Victory" campaign, Viktor Loginov, wrote in his blog that his group “managed to establish contact with companies leasing advertising space on buses in Riga and Tallinn.”
The posters “feature no Soviet symbols, so we are not violating the ban on them,” he said.
The campaign’s website states that the 2012 campaign will be “the most far-reaching” with some 30 buses launched in Russia and former Soviet countries.
Previously buses featuring the Soviet dictator’s photos were launched in Russian cities. Last year organizers also launched a bus in the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol.
The “Bus of Victory” campaign was first held in St. Petersburg in May 2010 and is aimed at “counteracting falsifications of our Fatherland’s history.” Members of its organizing committee say they do not belong to any political or public organization.
“Our only aim is to put the historical record straight, restore an unbiased approach to the country’s history… and to congratulate all veterans on the anniversary of the Great Victory by the Great State, which was led by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin during that harsh and turbulent period,” the website reads.
The former Soviet dictator is seen by many in the two Baltic countries as the architect of their occupation by the Soviet Union after the Second World War.
