If you’ve been to Fremont, you may have noticed a 16-foot statue of Vladimir Lenin in the heart of the neighborhood. If you didn’t notice the towering bronze sculpture, and you’re surprised by this statement, quit taking selfies and look up next time you’re in Fremont.
Aside from being visually incredible, the statue has a wonderful history behind it. The statue made its way to Seattle from then-Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s after the overthrow of the communist regime in the Soviet Union.
The statue’s life was intended to end in Europe, but when Lewis Carpenter of Issaquah saw this bronze Lenin lying in a junkyard in Poprad, Slovakia, he couldn’t resist buying it and bringing it back to Seattle with him. When Carpenter unexpectedly died in a car accident in 1994, Carpenter’s family was left with the homeless figurine of Lenin.
Carpenter’s family found themselves in mounds of debt due to his splurge on what was a fairly irrelevant statue to the United States. There was really only one logical place for the statue to end up, and that was Fremont: the self-proclaimed art capital of Seattle, otherwise known as “the center of the world.”
After its placement in Fremont in 1995, the Lenin statue has been entirely controversial. This is mostly attributed to the bad rap Lenin gets for being associated with Stalin and his reign of terror. There is confusion and disturbance about why Fremont, one of the most liberal neighborhoods of the one of the most liberal states in the United States, would have a totalitarian dictator’s statue standing tall in the center of everything.
Despite this, many Seattleites choose to defend the statue with all their might, seeing Lenin’s presence as a progressive symbol of democratic socialism. Other proponents of the statue simply admire it for its artistry and the strangeness of its placement.
This war between statue advocates and opponents has manifested in different ways. Protesters have been known to paint the statue’s hands red on occasion, to represent the blood on Lenin’s hands from the deaths he caused in the Soviet Union. Others, who view the statue as being much less abrasive, are proud to play around with the statue. They even dress him up in a tutu for Pride.
Despite contradictions of whether or not the Lenin statue and its history are fitting for Fremont, it’s here to stay as a huge part of the Seattle art scene — or, at least until someone decides to buy it for $250,000 and opts to keep it in their own backyard.
Reach writer Rebecca Gross at arts@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @becsgross
