A statue of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that stood in the central square of Gori, his hometown in Georgia, has been taken down.
The six metre bronze statue was removed unannounced from its plinth in central Gori in the middle of the night. It had been there since the early 1950s.
Officials say the statue will be moved to a museum in Gori dedicated to Stalin and will be replaced by a monument for the victims of the brief 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, in which Gori was bombed by Russian forces.
Stalin was born in Gori in 1879. He died in 1953.
