Chelyabinsk unveils monument to fallen legionnaires

A monument to Czechoslovak Legionaries who died in Russia fighting the Communists in 1918 was unveiled in Chelyabinsk on Thursday. The ceremony was attended by an official delegation and several hundred locals. An earlier memorial to the 262 dead and missing soldiers had been erected privately by local people, but was destroyed under the Soviet regime. Chelyabinsk was the scene of the Czechoslovaks’ initial revolt against Bolshevik authorities, which led to their well-known march to return home eastward. More than 4,000 of the 60,000 legionaries who fought in Russia died there. A number of memorials in Siberia commemorating the soldiers have been reconstructed since the fall of communism.