A Toilet for Pigeons in Every Russian City

          Ninety years after his death in 1924, possibly from neurosyphilis, Vladimir Lenin still presides over the main square in many Russian cities.  His statue seems ever present to the traveler making his way across the Russian Federation today.  The Russian people have long since moved on after his failed communist experiment met its dramatic end in 1991, raising the question of how much longer these gaudy effigies will remain standing.  In most cities they are largely ignored by all but the pigeons who find the Bolshevik’s bald pate a perfect place to deposit their droppings.

The Wizard of Ude

          The most garish of all the Lenin statues resides in the main square of the Siberian city of Ulan-Ude.  The gigantic head, erected in 1970 to celebrate the centennial of Lenin’s birth, looks more like the Wizard of Oz with water on the brain.  Nonetheless, it is the center of attraction in this otherwise unremarkable city, drawing crowds of children wanting to have their picture taken under his comical countenance.

At the Corner of Lenin and Marx

          Visitors to Russia will also notice that almost every major Russian city has both a Lenin Street and a Marx Street.  Yet, the Russian people will proudly tell you that they now consider themselves to have a free market economy while they enthusiastically point out the signs of a thriving capitalist nation all around them.  Do the sparse visitors to Lenin’s Mausoleum in Moscow portend a coming de-Leninization, paving the way for a shift in loyalties to the current Russian dictator?  Many feel that it is only a matter of time before the archaic street names and the guano splattered statues are removed.  Perhaps then the waxy figure lying in state in Red Square will finally be buried.