LENIN IN THE PINK.

Hooligans in St. Petersburg celebrated May Day by painting four statues of Lenin pink. One, which stands outside the Finland Station where Lenin arrived in April 1917 to take charge of the Russian Revolution, was cast from church bells in the 1930s and erected on the site of a demolished chapel. Three other statues were similarly vandalized. (Radio Russia, May 1; Interfax, May 3; AP, May 4; Itar-Tass, May 6) Thousands of Lenin statues remain standing across the former Soviet Union despite the collapse of communism in 1991. The usual explanation is that removing them would cost too much money.

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