MOSCOW (AP) — Russian news reports say curious and pious people are visiting a bust of the last czar in the Crimean capital after reports spread that the sculpture appeared to be weeping.

The bust of Nicholas II was erected near the Crimean prosecutor's office in Simferopol in 2016, two years after Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine.

Nicholas II, like previous czars, is considered a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Reports of statues and other inanimate objects appearing to weep periodically surface in various religions.

Natalia Poklonskaya, the former Crimean prosecutor, called the appearance of moisture "a miracle that neither scientists or anyone can explain." She noted that it corresponds with the 100th anniversary of Nicholas II's abdication from power.

"The sovereign in helping us," she said Friday on Tsargrad TV.