GORI, Georgia, June 25 (UPI) -- A 20-foot statue of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin was removed Friday from the main square in his hometown in Georgia.
The monument in Gori, where Stalin was born in 1879 as Josef Dzhugashvili, was secretly taken down in the early morning, The Guardian reported. Officials announced it will be replaced with a memorial to victims of the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008.