Yeltsin against return to Soviet anthem

"I have only one association with the old anthem - (Communist) party meetings and conferences at which the power of the party bureaucrats was reinforced," Yeltsin said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. Russia's parliament, the Duma, is due to vote Friday on a draft law submitted by Putin which if passed will reinstate the composition by Alexander Alexandrov with a change of words.

The majority of factions have said they will back the bill, which by contrast also underpins the double-headed Tsarist eagle as the Russia's coat of arms, and the 300-year-old red, white and blue tricolour as its flag. It was Yeltsin who decreed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the anthem be replaced by the less well-known "patriotic Song" of Mikhail Glinka, which has no words at all. Asked what Russian sporting medal winners should sing on the podium, Yeltsin replied: "I am sure that the old Soviet hymn is not interesting for our athletes - these are young people who look to the future, not the past."

Putin's bid to revive the old anthem has come under attack from members of the intelligentsia. Civil and human rights activists of the Russian society "Memorial". The Moscow-Helsinki group this week condemned Alexandrov's composition as "absolutely reflecting the spirit of the Stalinist empire, built on the bones of millions of people".

(dpa)