Stalin third in Great Russian poll

The former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, responsible for the deaths of 20m Soviet people in death camps, deportations and purges between 1922 and his death in 1953, has nevertheless come third in a Russian TV poll held to find the greatest Russian of all time. More than 50 million people voted in the poll which was organised by the Rossiya station and modeled on the BBC's Great Britons.

The exhaustive poll was conducted over a period of six months. At one stage, Stalin - still revered for his role in beating back the Germnans during the Second World War - was leading the race until a Rossiya producer urged voters to consider other contenders.

In the event, the winner was the medieval prince Alexander Nevsky, renowned for holding off German and Swedish invaders in the 13th century. He was canonised as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in the 16th century. In second place was Pyotr Stolypin, the reformist prime minister under Tsar Nicholas II. He was assassinated in 1911.

When German television conducted a similar poll five years ago, Adolf Hitler was ruled out of bounds. The voting for Stalin suggests that a recent government-led campaign to rehabilitate the dictator is yielding results.