Considering Lenin’s legacy of oppression and mass executions, the 16-foot, seven-ton bronze statue doesn’t sit well with all residents. It was originally brought to Seattle by Lewis Carpenter, a Washington resident who saved it from the scrapyards of Poprad, Slovakia. Arguing that it was a work of art that deserved to be preserved, he purchased it and brought it back to the U.S.
Carpenter died in 1994, not long after shipping the statue to Issaquah, Washington, where he planned to install it in front of a restaurant he was set to open. A year later, it made its way to Seattle, where it was displayed as a piece of public art, just one block south of the Rocket, another Cold War relic-turned-artwork. Carpenter’s family still owns the statue of Lenin, but would love to get it off their hands. There’s an entire Facebook page devoted to tearing it down, and it’s regularly vandalized by people 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 organization, but no buyer came forward. By 2015, the price had been raised to $250,000—or best offer, as the The Seattle Times reported. Whether it will actually ever be sold is another question.
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