But Stal­in’s fam­i­ly told Guardian Me­dia the cas­ket is ex­pect­ed to re­main closed dur­ing the fu­ner­al as view­ing had al­ready tak­en place on Wednes­day. 

The se­cu­ri­ty at SAPA ap­peared to have a dif­fi­cult time keep­ing the peo­ple at bay. 

As the mob of mourn­ers pushed at the glass doors, one se­cu­ri­ty guard was heard shout­ing: ” I will forcibly re­move you. Push­ing on the door is not go­ing to help any­body. Please move away thank you.” 

When the mob per­sist­ed, the guard made a pub­lic an­nounce­ment say­ing: “It is closed to the pub­lic now. There is no seat­ing for the pub­lic.” 

Across La­dy Hailes Av­enue, scores of res­i­dents from the Em­bac­cadere build­ings wait­ed to cross the road to en­ter SAPA, even though there was no space. 

To them, Stal­in was re­gard­ed as their hero. 

” You know how many times in my dark­est mo­ment I lis­ten to Stal­in’s song Bet­ter Days are com­ing,” Pearl Clarke said. 

Out­side SAPA, sev­er­al ven­dors sold sno­cones and lol­lies. By noon the rains had cleared up and the blis­ter­ing sun dried out the sur­round­ings. 

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Kaz­im Ho­sein, Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Pene­lope Beck­les and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds are in at­ten­dance at the fu­ner­al which is now un­der­way.