MOSCOW, April 20 (UPI) -- Nearly half a century after his death, the fearsome Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin is about to have a monument erected in his honor in a place that he fled during exile in 1910s.
Authorities in the town of Narym in Siberia's Tomsk province announced Saturday that they would build a monument to Stalin whom they called the "most colorful figure ever to visit the town."
Head of the administration in the Parabelsky district, Nikoali Kobelev, visited a local branch of the Artists' Union Saturday to order a statue entitled "A Young Stalin, Sitting on a Bench," RIA Novosti news agency reported.
In 1912, Joseph Dzhugashvili was sentenced to three years of exile in Narym for his Communist activities.
However, after 41 days in Narym, he staged an escape that was foiled by security agents and earned him and fellow-revolutionary Yakov Sverdlov a transfer to an even more remote exile located to the north of the polar circle.
It was during his years in exile that Dzhugashvili began calling himself Stalin, a derivative from the Russian word for steel - "stal," used to depict his mental strength.
