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Why does Seattle have a Lenin statue?

• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• wyldfire 9y ago
  From [1]: > Initially installed in Czechoslovakia in 1988, the sculpture was removed after the Velvet Revolution and brought to the United States in the 1990s. > Lewis E. Carpenter, an English teacher in Poprad originally from Issaquah, Washington, found the monumental statue lying in a scrapyard ready to be sold for the price of the bronze > ... Carpenter approached the city officials with a claim that despite its current unpopularity, the sculpture was still a work of art worth preserving, and he offered to buy it for $13,000. After many bureaucratic hurdles, he finally signed a contract with the mayor on March 16, 1993. > ... the statue was cut into three pieces and shipped to the United States at a total cost of $40,000. Carpenter financed much of that via mortgaging his home. > The Carpenter family continues to seek a buyer for the statue. As of 2015 the asking price is $250,000, up from a 1996 price tag of $150,000. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle