Tbilisi, Georgia - People across the vast territory where Josef Stalin once imposed his terror have marked the 133th anniversary of the dictator's birth, some in hatred but others in reverence.
In Moscow, several hundred Russian Communists laid flowers at Stalin's grave at the Red Square Friday, while smaller rallies were held across Russia and several former Soviet republics.
There were smaller gestures in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where Stalin was born in 1879. There the 83-year-old owner of a small museum on Stalin kissed a bust of the dictator on its lips, vowing to expand his collection.
Meanwhile, ethnic Crimean Tatars in the southern Ukrainian city of Simferopol demolished a small street exhibition on Stalin, remembering deportations of their people that he ordered during World War II. - Sapa-AP