ORYOL, September 13. /TASS/. An Oryol district court has temporarily banned the installation of Russia’s first statue to Czar Ivan the Terrible at a site proposed by the city authorities, the court’s press service said on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the Zavodskoy court began reviewing a lawsuit filed by an unnamed individual who said the monument’s construction was in a historic preservation zone of another site - the Magistrate building - which violates Russian law.

The monument to Ivan the Terrible, who in 1566 founded Oryol, a city located some 320 kilometers south of Moscow, was expected to be unveiled on September 3 two days before the city’s 450th anniversary.

The plans were put on hold in mid-June after several pickets had been held against erecting the statue at two other proposed sites in the city. An opinion poll showed that most citizens were absolutely against building such a monument to the czar in Oryol.

Authorities had proposed some 20 other sites in the city’s downtown area, in the outskirts and in parks, but between 1% and 4% respondents backed the plans, a poll that interviewed 450 people revealed.

Another monument to Ivan the Terrible may be erected in the Vladimir region, to the east of Moscow, in front of the czar’s residence in the Alexandrovskaya village. The three-meter-long statue could be installed on the shore of the Seraya River.