In 1981, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia commissioned Bulgarian sculptor Emil Venkov to create a statue that portrayed Vladimir Lenin as a bringer of revolution.  Briefly installed in Poprav, Czechoslovakia, the 16-foot bronze statue was sent to a scrapyard after the 1989 fall of Communism.

The statue in the scrapyard was discovered by Lewis Carpenter, an English teacher from Issaquah, Washington, who was teaching in Poprav and knew the artist.  Purchasing the statue with his own funds, Carpenter mortgaged his house to ship it to the USA.

But the City of Issaquah refused to display the statue of Lenin and, after Carpenter’s sudden death, it was sent to a foundry in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, to be melted down.

The statue of Lenin was saved again, this time by the foundry’s founder, Peter Bevis.  He convinced the Fremont Chamber of Commerce to display it until a buyer could be found. The statue was unveiled in 1995 and moved to its current location, 3526 Fremont Place North, in 1996. It remains controversial, however, its hands frequently painted red to symbolize the blood on Vladimir Lenin’s hands.  Other people admire the irony of a symbol of oppression which is now looking out over the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle where the motto is, “the freedom to be peculiar.”

Here’s more about “what was there before” Lenin:  a gas station.