Chris Yunker viaFlickr//CC BY - SA 2.0
If you ’d care to see the public nontextual matter of the Soviet Union , there ’s no motive to travel to Eastern Europe . In Seattle ’s artsy Fremont vicinity , there ’s a monument to Soviet drawing card Vladimir Lenin . Despite efforts by its owners to deal it off , it ’s been in Washington since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc ( first in Issaquah , beforemoving to Seattlein 1995 ) .
Considering Lenin ’s legacy of oppression and heap executions , the 16 - foot , seven - ton bronze statue does n’t pose well with all resident . It was in the beginning brought to Seattle by Lewis Carpenter , a Washington resident who bring through it from the scrapyards of Poprad , Slovakia . Arguing that it was a work of artistic creation that deserved to be preserved , he purchased it and get it back to the U.S.
Carpenter died in 1994 , not long after ship the statue to Issaquah , Washington , where he be after to set up it in front of a eating house he was set to open up . A year later , it made its agency to Seattle , where it was displayed as a piece of public art , just one block south ofthe Rocket , another Cold War relic - turn - nontextual matter . Carpenter ’s family still owns the statue of Lenin , but would fuck to get it off their hands . There ’s an entireFacebook pagedevoted to pluck it down , and it ’s on a regular basis vandalized by multitude who paint the statue ’s hands blood red .
In 1995 , the statue was put up for sale for $ 150,000 , with the proceeds scheduled to benefit a local arts system , but no buyer came forward . By 2015 , the price had been raised to $ 250,000 — or right offer , as theThe Seattle Timesreported . Whether it will really ever be sold is another question .
“ Who can say for sure if the residential area would admit a check for the sale of Lenin if offer ? The carving has found a place in Fremont , ” the Fremont Arts Council ’s Barbara Luecke toldmental_flossin an email . However , if anyone did actually want to pay the $ 250,000 that an art authenticator settle the statue was deserving , “ any yield from its sale would help with the sustentation of the various art projects around the neighborhood , ” she tell .
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