Finding Lenin • ANDRE JOOSSE PHOTOGRAPHY

FINDING LENIN

VLADIMIR LENIN ACROSS THE WORLD

Lenin, born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April 1870 – 21 January 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party Marxist–Leninist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a communist, he developed a variant of Marxism known as Leninism. _^wikipedia

I searched for Lenin to see if he survived the 1900s.

This is the northernmost statue of Vladimir Lenin, it stands in the abandoned settlement of Pyramiden in the Arctic, on the Spitsbergen archipelago, 2489 km from Moscow.

Mosaic of Lenin in the abandoned military settlement near the former airport Brand. The airfield was built by the Luftwaffe during the expansion of the army by Nazi Germany, between 1938 and 1939. In January 1951, work began on expanding the former Luftwaffe airbase for the Soviet armed forces.

In 1997, a Dutch entrepreneur imported a nine-meter-high statue of the Russian revolutionary. The statue was placed at his construction company in the Groningen village of Tjuchem. Nowadays, the statue can be admired in East Groningen. The statue is made of bronze and weighs no less than 17,000 kilos. The statue originally comes from Merseburg. The official unveiling took place in 1971. It shows Lenin in his most depicted pose, martially pointing where the road to socialism leads. That Lenin tries to hail a taxi in the other, obviously unofficial statement that was considered sacrilege.

This rather unknown sculpture is standing in the restricted area of the former military area of Zeithain. In 2007, the government decided to dismantle the base in Zeithain. Most of the buildings were torn down, but Lenin is still standing.

Chernobyl-2 is an old Soviet town in Ukraine. It was home of the ‘Duga-1 Radar’. The military village is situated in the woods, about 10 kilometers south from Chernobyl and Pripyat. It used to be a top secret military site during the Soviet times.

This statue of the communist leader was made in Czechoslovakia. The statue was originally unveiled in December 1957 in the small town of Hořovice in central Bohemia, where it remained until 1990. The Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) bought it at auction for 16,000 euros from an Austrian entrepreneur. The 2.15 meters high statue made of cast iron was installed in front of its headquarters in Gelsenkirchen in 2020. City authorities had attempted to prevent the statue from being installed, but their appeals were rejected by courts.

Estonian Lenin sculptor and USSR Art Prize recipient, Jaak Soans created this Lenin statue at a cost of 60,000 GDR Marks for the city of Schwerin. The Lenin Statute was unveiled on June 22, 1985. The Lenin in Schwerin is the last Lenin in Germany to remain in its original location. In 2014, a company offered to buy the Lenin statue, melt the bronze and transform it into a church bell. The city politely declined.

This is the Lenin Bust of Fürstenberg School Nr.27. While Lenin’s head is in poor condition, with the hole and the missing nose, it’s been like this for several years. It’s located just a few meters from here he once originally stood.

What is said to be the first-ever statue of Lenin is still standing in the Arbanyak Soviet Camp. It is situated outside Vanadzor, also known from the Soviet Union times as Kirovakan. It was erected during his lifetime.

The site is an abandoned military base that was built in 1934 as an airfield for the Wehrmacht. In May 1945, the Red Army took over the complex. This lone Lenin statue still stands by the entrance, though it seems to look a little worse for wear, having lost its face some time ago.

The over 3 meters high bronze-statue, made by the famous Soviet sculptor Nikolai Tomski, was a gift from the Soviet twin-town Nikopol in 1975. It was placed in front of the town hall until 1991. It was moved to the little a military cemetery. The statue was restored in 2022.

A Lenin mural inside a theater of the Olympic Village, build for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The military use of the Olympic Village began immediately after the Olympic Games, first the Wehrmacht and after the end of Second World War the Soviet army moved in.

Lenin at the abandoned Brandis-Waldpolenz airfield in Saxony. The airfield was built by the Nazis in 1934 and used by the Soviet Army between 1948 and 1992. The mural was in a poor state of repair for a long time. In 2020, photographer ‘Photosucher’ and Carlos Gomes from Lenin Is Still Around, cleaned the monument.