Elderly man beaten up aboard a bus for tearing down a portrait of Stalin

Today in the city of Tobolsk (about 1,400 miles east of Moscow), an old man was beaten up, after he tore down a portrait of Josef Stalin taped to the window of a bus.

Police haven't yet commented on the attack, but the company that owns the bus told the local news website Tobolsk.ru that a young passenger attacked an elderly man, allegedly hitting him with crutches, when the older man removed from the windshield a portrait of Stalin. Other reports say it was the bus driver himself, supposedly a man of North Caucasian appearance, who started hitting the elderly man.

A representative of the company that owns the bus where the incident took place told Tobolsk.ru that police are investigating the incident. He stressed that "there shouldn't be portraits of leaders, old or new, on our buses."