Statue of Lenin (Seattle)

Statue of Lenin
The Statue of Lenin in 2012
Statue of Lenin The statue's location in Seattle
Artist	Emil Venkov
Year	1988 (1988)
Type	Statue
Medium	Bronze
Subject	Vladimir Lenin
Dimensions	5 m (16 ft)
Location	Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Coordinates	47°39′05″N 122°21′04″W / 47.6514°N 122.3510°W / 47.6514; -122.3510
Website	fremont.com/about/lenin/

The Statue of Lenin is a 16 ft (5 m) bronze statue of Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It was created by Bulgarian-born Slovak sculptor Emil Venkov and initially put on display in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1988, the year before the Velvet Revolution. After the revolutions of 1989 and dissolution of the Soviet Union, a wave of de-Leninization in Eastern Europe brought about the fall of many monuments in the former Soviet sphere. In 1993, the statue was bought by an American who had found it lying in a scrapyard. He brought it home with him to Washington State but died before he could carry out his plans to formally display it.

Since 1995, the statue has been held in trust waiting for a buyer, standing on temporary display for the last 29 years on a prominent street corner in Fremont. It has become a local landmark, frequently being either decorated or vandalized. The statue has sparked political controversy, including criticism for being communist chic and not taking the historic meaning of Leninism and communism seriously (or taking it too seriously), or by comparing the purported acceptance of such a charged political symbol to the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials. Much of the debate ignores the statue's private ownership and installation on private property, with the public and government having virtually no say in the matter.