Penza, 22 April 2015. PenzaNews. The members and followers of the Communist Party of Russian Federation have laid flowers to the Vladimir Lenin monument on the eponymous square of Penza city to commemorate the 145th anniversary of the birth of the Soviet leader, celebrated on Wednesday, April 22.

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Over 50 people took part in the event.

The communists gathered their numbers by the regional wall of fame and marched towards the Lenina square.

The flower-laying ceremony was preceded by a public rally, where the audience was addressed by the Penza region Legislative Assembly deputy Georgy Kamnev, first secretary of the CPRF regional committee; head of the regional committee press service Sergei Padalkin; first secretary of the CPRF city committee Dmitry Filyaev; and other CPRF members.

In his speech, Georgy Kamnev said that the Russian Communists are struggling to defend the rights of regular citizens – workers, doctors, teachers, – just like they did in Lenin’s times.

“We are fighting for a better life four our country, for a better future for our great Motherland. In our opinion, we can modernize, develop, greaten our Motherland only if we follow the laws of development as written in the great works of great people we follow,” he said.

In his turn, Sergei Padalkin congratulated the audience with the great day, and read a poem about the Soviet Revolution and Vladimir Lenin by Vladimir Mayakovsky.

The Penza Communists are doing their work to preserve the Soviet Proletariat leader’s legacy, he added.

“At present, we are trying to preserve and repair monuments to Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin]. Last year, we located a monument in the village of Lenino in the Penza region that was in a terrible state. Thanks to our intervention, the local administration gave us the green light, and the monument has been repaired this year,” he explained.

In conclusion of the public rally, Dmitry Filyaev read out an appeal to the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko with demands to stop persecuting the Communist Party followers in his country, cancel the laws that persecute the Soviet and Communist symbols just like the Nazi emblems and symbols, and halt the military campaign aimed at eradicating civilians in Donbass.

Throughout the campaign, the CPRF activists were frequently approached by police officers who complained that the public rally was not agreed with the authorities.

After the event, the head of the CPRF regional committee press office Sergei Padalkin wrote in his Twitter that he and two other activists were detained by the police and were accused of violating Art. 20.2 of the Administrative Offenses Code, titled “Violating the Established Procedure for Arranging or Conducting a Meeting, Rally, Demonstration, Procession or Picket.”