Russian Army recruitment office in Siberia gets a church

KRASNOYARSK, Russia, June 24 (UPI) -- A Russian Army recruitment office in Siberia now has a church in which recruits can pray before joining the military, a defense official said Monday.

The country's first church within a recruiter's office opened Monday in Krasnoyarsk, a former gulag city in central Siberia and now home to more than 1 million people, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

The St. Alexander Nevsky chapel, built on suggestion of army officials, priests and draftees' parents, was consecrated by the Russian Orthodox Church, the official said, to serve the 3,500 conscripts expected in the city to begin their one-year mandatory military service.