Moscow, Oct 14 (RIA Novosti): Over 1,000 people have signed up to participate in an anti-drug rally complete with a hearse parade to be held in Novosibirsk city Sunday, media report said.

Novosibirsk is the third most populous city in Russia after Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The funerary vehicles will cruise from the Siberian city's centre to the local crematorium, the city's edition of Argumenty i Fakty weekly said Saturday.

An art exhibit titled Choose Life, diplaying some 100 pieces of artwork will be unveiled at the crematorium's Memory Park, to be followed by a concert, Delovoi Kvartal news website said.

The show will culminate in a torch-lit parade and burning of a huge casket symbolising Vice, a crematorium spokeswoman told Argumenty i Fakty.

The idea was pitched by local medical and theatre students concerned over drug abuse in the Novosibirsk, said Sergei Yakushin, the founder of the city's crematorium, which also hosts an establishment known as the Museum of Funeral Culture.

"Drug addiction is a serious 'client supplier' for the funeral industry…a very dynamic conveyor belt of death. But we in the funeral business aren't happy about such 'steady delivery'," Yakushin said, Delovoi Kvartal reported.