Bronze angel takes Lenin's place in Kyrgyzstan

Workers in Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek on Sunday secured a giant bronze statue of an angel to a plinth that had long been occupied by Vladimir Lenin in an aim to end a year-long controversy.
Sparks first flew in this former Soviet republic's statue saga last summer, when officials ordered the removal of a six-metre (20-foot) statue of the Soviet Union's founder that towered on a 20-metre pedestal in front of the national museum - formerly the Lenin museum.
Communist activists and parliament deputies - angered that there had been no public consultation - demanded that Prime Minister Nikolai Tanayev resign.
Those on the other side of the debate won support from scientists who declared that the Lenin statue was in danger of exploding due to radioactive condensate deep under its shell.
By comparison with other Central Asian republics, this mountainous country of five million people has been cautious about removing the statues of Lenin in a variety of poses that were ubiquitous across the Soviet Union.
Opponents of Lenin's removal were only partly placated when the statue reappeared on a smaller plinth in front of the country's parliament - located in an obscure spot at the back of the national museum.
Meanwhile a metallic-looking angel - representing freedom - was put in Lenin's place, in time for celebrations on August 31, 2003 to mark what the government has said was the 2,200th anniversary of the emergence of the Kyrgyz people.
To general surprise, the angel was removed this weekend as authorities said that, despite the looks, he was not made of bronze but of plaster - prompting bemused reports from television news presenters.
"Unfortunately we weren't able to cast the statue in bronze in time for the 2,200th anniversary celebrations so we made a temporary one from plaster," the angel's designer Turgunbai Sadykov told AFP.
On Sunday, workers braved nearly gale-force winds to mount a much larger five-tonne bronze angel in the place of the plaster one.
Though bigger and brighter, the new angel - perched on a globe and holding the sun's rays as seen through the roof of a traditional tent or yurt - has not cast a spell over everyone.