Chairman of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin at a meeting on 23 July called for perpetuating the memory of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, claiming his key contribution to the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
Volodin had previously hinted at the possibility of renaming Volgograd to Stalingrad again, but noted that this was hindered by the decisions of the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, which condemned the so-called cult of personality.
This time Volodin did not speak directly about how exactly Stalin’s memory should be immortalised.
During the spring session, the State Duma passed new laws toughening penalties for a number of political articles. One of the latest decisions is to establish responsibility for searching for extremist materials on the Internet.