- MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's
parliament overwhelmingly approved on Friday President Vladimir Putin's
request to reinstate a Stalin-era anthem tune and a tsarist flag and eagle
as the country's post-Soviet state symbols.
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- The State Duma lower house pushed through the legislation
in less than three hours. The most hotly disputed measure, the ''Unbreakable
Union'' anthem, was backed by 381 votes to 51.
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- The white, blue and red, tricolor and the double-headed
eagle coat-of-arms also passed easily as did restoration of the Soviet-style
red banner for the armed forces.
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- A delighted Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said the
vote on the rousing anthem music enabled Russians to be proud of Soviet-era
achievements.
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- ``This was a vital step. the country has been sliding
toward destruction for 10 years and is still doing so,'' Zyuganov told
radio station Ekho Moskvy.
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- ``We have restored the anthem of the Soviet Union, the
great music of (World War Two) victory, the flag which we planted atop
the Reichstag, the anthem which helped us move into space and create a
complete system of health and education.''
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- The legislation will provide Russia, nine years after
it emerged from decades of Communist rule, with an official coat of arms,
flag and anthem for the first time.
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- Liberals, who had demanded a new anthem to break with
the excesses of Stalinism, cried foul, saying they had been denied time
to speak.
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- Grigory Yavlinsky, veteran leader of the Yabloko party,
said the move was a harbinger of terrible things to come. He said liberals
might challenge it in the Constitutional Court.
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- ``We believe this is a signal about where our society
is heading and what we can expect in the near future,'' he told reporters
outside the Duma. ``It removes all illusions about the medium-term policy
of the country's administration.''
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- Words Still To Be Decided
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- Former President Boris Yeltsin had also opposed a reversion
to Alexander Alexandrov's old anthem, introduced in 1944 while part of
European Russia was under Nazi occupation.
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- The rousing anthem melody will replace an arcane 19th-century
tune for which no words had been written. That tune, along with the coat
of arms and flag, were only temporary stand-ins approved by decree under
Yeltsin.
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- Putin, keen to bolster Russia's nationhood, earlier this
week defended the Soviet anthem, saying he wanted to unite Russians by
taking the best from their tumultuous history.
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- Orthodox Patriarch Alexiy II, another surprise backer
of the Soviet-era music, exercised caution after the vote, telling NTV
television that state symbols ``must not divide our people.''
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- The anthem remains wordless for the moment pending a
study of proposed new lyrics. Various sets of words have been put forward
and among suggested authors is Sergei Mikhalkov, who wrote the original
lyrics and has since amended them twice.
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- The legislation stipulates that those present during
the playing of the anthem must stand to attention and men must remove their
hats. Those found to have insulted the anthem will be subject to criminal
proceedings.
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- As debate got under way, Yabloko party activists gathered
outside Moscow's main post office, urging passers-by to send telegrams
to Putin denouncing the president's proposals.
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- Elderly pro-Communist demonstrators backing reinstatement
of the old anthem stood outside parliament and a few minor scuffles broke
out as deputies made their way inside.
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- Yeltsin had said Putin, the man he chose as prime minister
and his preferred successor in 1999, should influence public opinion and
ensure a new anthem was composed.
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- Anatoly Chubais, architect of Russia's crash privatization
program in the 1990s and a long-standing Yeltsin adviser, denounced the
measure.
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- ``I have already said it is an historic error,'' he was
shown on television telling reporters in the Siberian town of Tomsk. ''History
obliges us to correct such errors and this one will have to be corrected
too.''
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