I’m in Semey, Kazakhstan. The Lonely Planet guide mentions that a backstreet park houses relocated statues of Lenin. I found the park and saw several small Lenins lurking among the trees. But where was the promised “large statue” that once stood in the main square? Then I looked up, and there he was. At somewhat […]
Browsing Posts tagged Lenin
Semey: A Bronze Titan
May 14, 2019
Tirana: Familiar Faces
June 26, 2018
I was striding past Albania’s National Art Gallery when I suddenly spotted a familiar face lurking at the back. Wait, it can’t be? Can it? Yes, it is! Stalin himself, larger than life, glaring disdainfully at the passers by! It turns out that an area behind the Gallery has a small selection of communist-era statues. […]
Khojand: Alexandria-the-Furthest
September 29, 2009
Khojand (aka Khujand) is a sleepy industrial town in Northern Tajikistan. In an earlier age it was Leninabad. And in an even earlier one, it was Alexandria-the-Furthest. Yes, Big Alex was here, pursuing a Scythian army. In 329 b.c. he re-founded the existing city as Alexandria Eschate (“Alexandria the Farthest”) on the Jaxartes River. Unfortunately […]
A Day in Transdniester
December 21, 2008
On my way from Chisinau to Odessa, I passed through Tiraspol, the capital of the strange territory of Transdniester (aka Transdniestr, or Transdnestr, or Transnistria, or Transdniestria). This is a narrow slice of Moldova with an ethnic Russian majority. Back when the USSR was dissolved, these good folk were alarmed to discover that Moldova was […]
Ashgabat: Much Strangeness
October 2, 2008
Turkmenistan is by far the strangest of the ex-soviet Republics. The late President Niyazov (aka “Turkmenbashi”) ruled as an absolute monarch, with a personality cult that would have made Stalin blush. Strange relics of his reign still dot Ashgabat. The Arch of Neutrality is a 75 meter tripod tower, adorned with a 12 meter golden […]
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