Wednesday 11 October 2017

A Dancing Lenin in the ballet 'Hammer and Sickle'

Here is Lenin in the ballet "Hammer and Sickle" performed by the Kazakh State Accademy Dance Theatre. The leader of the world revolution appears to the music of Time Forward, one of the most well-known pieces of music from the Soviet era.


Friday 29 September 2017

Ivan Tuzov's Pixellated Lenin's

A visit to the former winery turned arts centre near Kurskaya station last week meant that I discovered one more Lenin-related series of art works. Namely Ivan Tuzov's pixellated Lenin's. Lenin becomes a character for a computer game. As Tuzov states in an interview in his art Lenin (and other historical figures) lose their historical baggage. One of his exhibitions was entitled "Lenin Father Christmas' (Ленин Дед Мороз). He relates this to how he remembers being told about Lenin at nursery school. So Tuzov's Lenin is a kind of monument to his young memory of the figure of Lenin.








Sunday 20 August 2017

Lenin (Peter Steen) as ambulant beer seller in crazy Danish musical comedy Lenin, You Rascal, You (1972)

Haven't been able to find much information about this film at all but it appears that Lenin turns up as an ambulant beer seller among other things in the demential comedy about Lenin on his way back to Russia in his sealed train to start the revolution. Here's a scene:



 Google translating a short synopsis from the Danish one comes up with this:

Lenin's journey in 1917 on the sealed train from Zurich to Saint Petersburg, served as a crazy comedy. The great revolutionary theorist goes through numerous crazy conflicts before he can reach home and start his October Revolution.
Would love to see the rest of the film. Here are some more scenes on youtube (without subtitles but the film seems to have many musical numbers):

Some Cyberpunk Lenin's



Lenin Peak (the highest Lenin bust in the world, in the Pamir Mountains)

Rather inacessible Lenin's don't just include the Lenin in the Antarctic but also those 7,000 metres above sea-level. One of the highest points in the Pamirs in Tajikistan. As wikipedia states:

Lenin Peak is the highest mountain in the Trans-Alay Range of Central Asia, and in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan it is exceeded only by Ismoil Somoni Peak (7,495 m). It was thought to be the highest point in the Pamirs in Tajikistan until 1933, when Ismoil Somoni Peak (known as Stalin Peak at the time) was climbed and found to be more than 300 metres higher. 

Here is a picture of the Lenin at the peak (arguably the highest Lenin bust in the world, unless someone can prove otherwise):

Here the wikipedia link to Lenin Peak (named in 1928)