protest
© AFP / Alexei Vladykin
After days of angry protests, dozens of arrests and scuffles with riot police, the Kremlin has reassured people no major construction will be taking place in a park in the Siberian city of Ekaterinburg.

After speaking to the company in charge, the president's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that nothing but the reconstructed historic church will be erected in the park.

"The information that the church will be part of big construction plans and that there will be other buildings and centres, is not correct," he said, adding that the works would only involve the renovation of the church.

The city government plans to rebuild St. Catherine's Cathedral, which was demolished in 1930 by the communists. But the decision has been met with protests from citizens, who wish to keep one of the city's few green spaces untouched.