Banners with "ideologically incorrect" aircraft will be replaced in St. Petersburg

22.02.2011 Congratulatory banners displaying a Chinese fighter amid Russian national weapons will be replaced; those banners decorate streets of St. Petersburg on the eve of Motherland Defenders' Day, reported RIA Novosti referring to a representative of the city press committee.

Numerous media agencies wrote about those banners in St. Petersburg's streets on Monday.

"New festive banners appeared in streets of St. Petersburg last Wednesday displaying ideologically correct Russian warship and tank under Chinese fighter Chengdu J-10 (known in the West as F-10 Vigorous Dragon)", wrote Kommersant Vlast on Monday.

Orderer of the banners is St. Petersburg's press committee.

"This is fault of the banner's designers. Our committee did not approve printing of those banners. An employee from advertisement positioning center responsible for this will be penalized", reported RIA Novosti citing the official.

According to him, the banners are being replaced now; most of them have been already re-stuck. "It is planned to finish replacement of all such banners till the day is over", concluded the official.

So far, RIA Novosti has not received comments of advertisement positioning center.

Editor's remark

It should be noted that such things happen not for the first time. In the previous years prior to Feb 23 and the Russian Navy Day there were congratulatory banners in St. Petersburg showing American warships; pictures of German tank Tiger in local newspaper once upon a time congratulated Kaliningrad's veterans on the Victory Day. Such flubs are becoming a "good" tradition because of "high" expertise of orderers and makers of such products.