More wacko than Jacko
Andy Potts
The leader of the international proletariat could be evicted by the late King of Pop - if Russian producer Alexander Valov gets his way.
His proposal to embalm Michael Jackson's corpse and install it in Red Square may have creepy overtones of the graveyard sequence from the famous "Thriller" video, but Valov hopes while it may not "Heal the World" it could at least ease the financial crisis.
Valov's plan is for Jackson to be immortalised in his "moonwalk" pose, and an entry fee to the mausoleum will transform the site into a license to print money as his international army of fans flocks to pay homage.
But the general reaction has been that Valov is even more wacko than Jacko.
Staff at the Lenin Mausoleum described the plan as "completely ridiculous", while at City Hall nobody was willing to dignify the proposal with a formal response.
Outspoken Russian Communist splinter group, the Communists of Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, or KPLO, went further - suggesting that Valov's proposals could have "dangerous" consequences for the producer.
"When the Communists return to power Mr Valov will be arrested and convicted of incitement to abuse a national shrine," said Viktor Perov, a member of the KPLO's Central Committee. "How can you compare the leader of the world proletariat with a paedophile drug addict who sang with a squeaky voice?"
The Communists' call for Valov to "Beat it!" has prompted the impresario to backtrack a bit, suggesting instead that it might be better to build a new mausoleum next door to Lenin's Red Square des res.
It's unlikely that Jackson himself would have been impressed with either idea. The lyrics to his 2001 track "Stranger in Moscow" lament the "Kremlin's shadow belittlin' me" and warns "We're talking danger, baby".
However, Valov recalled how Jackson visited the mausoleum when he performed in Moscow in 1993, and told Russia Today television that the singer "by all his actions imitated such leaders as Lenin".
Lenin's last resting place is a regular source of controversy. Communists are determined to preserve his mausoleum, despite frequent suggestions that it is time for his corpse to be removed and buried alongside his partner, Nadezhda Krupskaya, by the Kremlin wall.
Memorial to Michael
Jackson's fans plan US embassy tribute
Elena Kirillova
Michael Jackson's fans in Moscow plan to make their own tribute to the singer on Tuesday outside the US Embassy.
July 7 is the day when the memorial service for Jackson, who died age 50 of a cardiac arrest, will be held in Los Angeles.
On the day of his death, June 25, the embassy became an impromptu shrine as shocked devotees of Jackson's music brought flowers, candles and posters.
A longer-term tribute is proposed by Yevgeny Anegin. His plans to open a nightclub with the star's singing coach Seth Riggs were reported on the liveinternet.ru web-portal's Michael Jackson page.
Outside of Moscow, reports of babies named after the singer are springing up. One of the first, Michael Shalenko-Jackson, was born in Novosibirsk region. His mother, Yevgenia, said it was both the happiest and saddest day of her life.
In Ryazan, a local musician and Jackson fan symbolically named his street Ulitsa imeni Dzheksona, according to life.ru, while in Ukraine the village of Oktyabrskoye, in the Zaporizhiye region, could go one better and take Jackson's name.