As an avid cyclist it is distinctly possible Lenin visited what is now Nowa Huta during his two year sojourn in Kraków. He made a high-profile comeback in1954 when the steelworks were named after him, and a year later a statue of him was unveiled in Strzelecki Park. The figure was moved to the Lenin Museum soon after, and thereafter mysteriously disappeared. In 1970 the decision was taken to construct a new one on Al. Róż, with Marian Konieczny winning the commission.
Strangely the artist, the man behind the Nike statue in Warsaw, was at the time living in Lenin’s former flat. Weird. Perhaps inspired by this freaky turn of fate Konieczny took three years to create a cracker of a statue, with the seven tonne Lenin seen striding purposefully foreward with raincoat open and furrowed brow. The people of Nowa Huta however were left unimpressed, and the statue soon became the focus of creative vandals. In 1979 a bomb was planted at his feet, though the only casualty proved to be a local man who died of shock after woken by the blast. During the Martial Law era more attempts to destroy him were thwarted, and he doggedly survived an effort to pull him down, as well as an arson attack. Finally, on December 10, 1989, Lenin was picked up by a giant crane, boxed up and left to rot in a disused fort. But his story doesn’t end there. Years later a Swedish philanthropist bought him for 100,000 Swedish crowns, and had him shipped out to a museum outside of Stockholm. Today Nowa Huta’s pet Lenin has been given a more youthful look by Swedish artists, and is now seen touting a pierced ear and a ciggie.
Strangely the artist, the man behind the Nike statue in Warsaw, was at the time living in Lenin’s former flat. Weird. Perhaps inspired by this freaky turn of fate Konieczny took three years to create a cracker of a statue, with the seven tonne Lenin seen striding purposefully foreward with raincoat open and furrowed brow. The people of Nowa Huta however were left unimpressed, and the statue soon became the focus of creative vandals. In 1979 a bomb was planted at his feet, though the only casualty proved to be a local man who died of shock after woken by the blast. During the Martial Law era more attempts to destroy him were thwarted, and he doggedly survived an effort to pull him down, as well as an arson attack. Finally, on December 10, 1989, Lenin was picked up by a giant crane, boxed up and left to rot in a disused fort. But his story doesn’t end there. Years later a Swedish philanthropist bought him for 100,000 Swedish crowns, and had him shipped out to a museum outside of Stockholm. Today Nowa Huta’s pet Lenin has been given a more youthful look by Swedish artists, and is now seen touting a pierced ear and a ciggie.
