MOSCOW (Reuters) – A shawarma store in Moscow was forced to close the day after it opened after protests against its provocative Josef Stalin brand, the store owner told Reuters on Saturday.
The Stalin Doner store displayed a portrait of the controversial communist leader above his front door. Inside, a man dressed in the uniform of the Stalin-era security service served meat packages to customers named after Soviet leaders.
“We opened completely the day before yesterday and served about 200 customers,” said store owner Stanislav Voltman.
“There were no legal reasons (to close the store),” he added, but said the police forced him to remove the Stalin plaque and then “colossal pressure” from local authorities forced him to close completely.
The brand was hotly debated on social media, with some commentators condemning it as unpleasant.
Stalin’s government was marked by mass repression, labor camps and famine. Nearly 700,000 people were executed during the Great Terror of 1936-38, according to official conservative estimates.
However, many in the former Soviet Union still regard him primarily as the leader who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II, guaranteeing the country’s very existence.
“I expected some exaggeration from social media,” said Voltman. “But I did not expect all TV stations, all reporters and bloggers to gather here and line up as they do in front of Lenin’s mausoleum.”
(Reporting by Dmitriy Turlyun; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Ros Russell)