Russia is marking the 100th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution on November 7, 2017. Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace, in the second of two revolutions in 1917, which, combined, ended Tsarist rule and set the stage for the creation of the Soviet Union. Lenin died in 1924, but his legacy and image have lived on for nearly a century. With the backing of the Soviet government, tens of thousands of statues, busts, and monuments to Lenin were erected in former Soviet states and allied nations. These likenesses became worldwide symbols of communism and the Soviet Union, and they have ridden the tides of fortune and disfavor over the decades. Today, here are a few images of these monuments still standing in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Svalbard, Ukraine, Vietnam, Germany, Belarus, Georgia, and Lithuania.
A Collection of Lenins, on the 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution
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Read moreA bas-relief depicting Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin on a dam at the Kirov Reservoir in the Talas region of western Kyrgyzstan on September 4, 2017. #
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Read moreA detail of a statue of Vladimir Lenin standing in the settlement of Ordzhonikidze, near Feodosia, Crimea, on September 26, 2017. #
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Read moreA bust of Vladimir Lenin with Soviet-era sculptures in the Alley of Leaders underwater museum off the coast of Cape Tarhankut, Crimea, on July 17, 2016. #
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Read moreA golden Lenin monument in Stakhanov, Ukraine, on December 29, 2015. #
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Read moreA woman walks past a statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin at the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, on October 31, 2017. #
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Read moreMuseum and project director Andrea Theissen stands next to the head of a 19-meter statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin at the permanent exhibition, "Unveiled, Berlin and its Monuments," as she speaks to reporters in Berlin's Spandau Citadel Museum on April 27, 2016. The exhibition illustrates German history through the many monuments and memorials that have appeared in the capitol since the early 18th century. #
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Read moreA sculpture of Vladimir Lenin standing in Moscow's Muzeon Sculpture Park following heavy snowfall on January 13, 2017. #
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Read moreCommuters pass a mosaic portrait of Lenin by Soviet artist Grigory Opryshko at a metro station in Moscow on October 27, 2017. #
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Read moreA woman photographs a sculpture of Lenin during the opening of "Energy of the Dream. Сentennial of 1917 Revolution" exhibition in Moscow, Russia, on November 2, 2017. #
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Read moreStudents play with a statue of Lenin at the Lenin Hut Museum in a forest near Razliv Lake, outside of St. Petersburg, Russia, on October 27, 2017. #
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Read moreA panel with a portrait of Lenin near an abandoned building in the 30-km (19 mile) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Orevichi, Belarus, on March 12, 2016. #
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Read moreA statue of Lenin stands overlooking a vista in front of the officers' building at the former Soviet military base in Wuensdorf, Germany, on January 26, 2017. Wuensdorf, once called "The Forbidden City," was the biggest base for the Soviet armed forces in communist East Germany from 1945 until the last Soviet troops left in the early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany. #
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Read moreA bust of Lenin in the abandoned Russian mining settlement of Pyramiden, on the Norwegian Arctic Svalbard archipelago, on July 19, 2015. The Soviet Union bought Pyramiden in 1927 from the Swedish founders of the coal mine. It was abandoned in 1998 after the mine's closure. It once housed 1,200 Russians and had a hospital, a sports and culture center, and a movie theater. With much of its infrastructure still in place, efforts have been made since 2007 to make it a tourist attraction. #
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Read moreA visitor stands in front of a model of a Lenin monument created by artists Vladimir Gelfrejch and Lew Iljin during the press preview of the exhibition "Revolutionary! Russian Avantgarde from the collection of Vladimir Tsarenkov" in the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, in Germany, on December 9, 2016. #
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Read moreStudents practice a modern dance in front of a statue of Lenin in a public park in Hanoi, Vietnam, on October 25, 2017. #
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Read moreA damaged monument to Lenin lies in a private abandoned courtyard outside Tbilisi, Georgia, on September 12, 2017. #
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Read moreIn this photo taken on October 4, 2017, visitors take photos near a statue of Lenin in Grutas Park, in Druskininkai, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, Lithuania. Grutas Park is a sculpture garden of Soviet-era statues and other Soviet ideological relics from the times of the Lithuanian SSR. #
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Read moreA monument to Lenin stands in a park in the Siberian town of Uzhur in the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia on September 28, 2017. #
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Read moreA sculpture of Vladimir Lenin installed at the botanical garden in St. Petersburg, photographed on June 25, 2017. #
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Read moreA statue of Lenin has been splashed with red paint in Odessa, Ukraine, on April 23, 2015. #
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Read moreA worker washes a statue of Lenin in St. Petersburg, Russia, on September 28, 2017. #
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Read moreA woman stands next to a bas-relief representing Lenin, at Ploschad Ilyicha metro station in Moscow, Russia, on March 9, 2016. #
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Read moreA cat jumps off a destroyed statue of Vladimir Lenin in Rybinsk, 270 kilometers (170 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia, on August 5, 2017. #
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Read moreA sculpture of Lenin erected in 1970 stands at Moscow Square, in front of the House of Soviets, in St. Petersburg, on June 25, 2017. #
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Read moreA pigeon sits on a statue of Lenin in Donetsk's main square in Ukraine on October 4, 2014. #
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